Rhubarb Rules

Rhubarb Upside Down Cake

Ohhhh Yum!  The supermarket had gorgeous rhubarb yesterday.  I have a collection of recipes from rhubarb bread to American Rote Gruetze, to plain old rhubarb sauce.  Anything with rhubarb and strawberries.
What is American Rote Gruetze you may ask.  In German speaking nations, in summer, restaurants serve, and one can also buy, this red treat.  It's normally a mixture of red currants, red raspberries and strawberries, sometime strained into a gelee, but to my mind better with the whole fruit.  It is thickened with cornstarch or tapioca and served room temp. or chilled.
In our New England neck of the woods, red currants, when available, are ungodly pricey.  I never see red currant juice, either.  I have come up with my own take on this delicious, healthful dessert.  For example, yesterday, I used 1 1/2 cups rhubarb (1 1/2 inches pieces), 1 cup frozen cranberries, 1 cup frozen strawberries, 1 cup frozen mixed berries, 1 teaspoon of lemon juice and about 1/4 rind from a lemon.  A couple teaspoons of cornstarch.  A bit of water for the cranberries and rhubarb, which I cooked together.  A judicious amount of sugar.  The dessert should remind slightly tart, but not set your teeth on edge.
We serve it with whipped cream, but heavy cream would also be good.  It is toothsome, and according to what I read, red fruits with their antioxidants are good for you.  Gee,  isn't it nice that something that tastes good is good for you, too?
I confess to a weariness at just reading (never mind cooking) all these meatless recipes with 18 ingredients and lots of work: chopping and slicing, heavy labor, and you just know by reading the ingredients that the mouthfeel will be lacking as well as the satisfaction of eating.  This is the eat to live rather than the live to eat philosophy, and to me, any life without occasional forays into bacon, heavy cream and steak, yes, fried chicken, too, is no life at all but a penance.  At least my vegetarian recipes taste good.  Wild mushroom lasagne anyone? 


Tonight I'm making a recipe  Rhubarb Upside Down Cake to take to a party.  Doesn't it look scrumptious?
Another rhubarb recipe is a crostata made with whole wheat flour, but alas, I have misplaced it.  Oh, for one's own lovely rhubarb patch!  Never had that. 

Praise be to the web. Found that crostata recipe.  With raspberries, too!  My pie plate runneth over.  Here 'tis:
Rhubarb and raspberry crostata with whole wheat flour

I bought parsley and cilantro for the garden, and also some rosemary which I'll grow in a good-looking pot.  Garden is groomed and ready to plant.  Put in mesclun lettuces and spinach yesterday.  The sage looks all right and the oregano is coming back.  Mint, too.  You can't kill mint.   Once I pulled some up and threw it into the woods and guess what?  The following year I had a patch of mint in the woods. 


Buy a bunch of rhubarb and get out your cookbook.  The season is short.  The kitchen is still cool.  Yes! 

The First Spring Day in New England

Spring is sill a week away, and I never dare get my hopes up until end-of-April, but when we drove back from getting a bite to eat at noon, the temperature was 62 degrees and it felt so balmy one needed no coat or jacket, maybe a light sweater, but at Patriot Place there were lots of folks in shirt sleeves.

The winter heath is blooming (the flowers are really too tiny to photograph) but the wild ginger is green and therefore alive, and it looks like the daffodils I planted last fall have thrust their noses above the ground.  The beds are mostly till covered with leaves, and I will leave the leaves alone.  


Birdsong?  Did I mention birdsong?  The seed and suet are all going fast.  We still have a pile of snow in the front yard where the plow deposited it.  I got in there with a shovel to throw it about in order to help it melt faster.  A smallish Christmas tree branch appeared from under the snow  in the front yard, and the neighborhood whippets chewed tennis ball added to the bizarre still life.  Of course some of the curbstone and pavement from the street is lying about the yard, too.

It's going to be the cleanup from hell, but I noticed the chives are 1/8 inch out of the ground.  And some of the oregano close to the ground is green. The first rhubarb appeared in the grocery store.  I have lots of rhubarb recipes, but it's hard to beat rhubarb sauce, just rhubarb, sugar to taste and a very small amount of hot water.  Nothing could be easier and it's a great spring tonic.

I made a dynamite salad dressing last night with spices and oregano, also parsley, oil, vinegar and feta.  Served it over baby arugula and naval orange slices.  This was a keeper.  The spices were coriander and fennel seed, toasted then smashed in a mortal and pestle.  I use a real apothecary mortal and pestle to grind small amounts of herbs.  For larger quantities, a coffee grinder reserved for the purpose of herbs is a good idea.  Do label it! 

A friend sent this picture of a fox who seems to be living in the deserted stable.  He thinks it might be a new mom.  Isn't that bushy tail something?  What a handsome creature.

The Fox from the stables. He/he  likes rabbits.