Finally! Local fruit besides apples! Well, what is rhubarb? Does it count as a fruit? With enough honey and sugar and strawberry added, it sure tastes like fruit. So I wanted to use rhubarb, honey, a tiny bit of sugar, tapioca starch to thicken, and to stir in strawberries at the end. But I couldn't find a recipe for rhubarb sauce with all of those ingredients (why are so many people hung up on pie?), so I got some basic ideas from talking to my mom; remembered what my friend, Juliane, told me about stirring in the strawberries at the end; looked online at Cat's Kitchen website (http://web.mac.com/catherinehaug/iWeb/CatsKitchen-Recipes/Rhubarb.html), and then did a little improvisation. Here's the final product. I'm halving the recipe, assuming that most people won't be starting with 5 lbs of rhubarb.
Rhubarb Sauce
Cut 2 1/2 lbs rhubarb stems into 1/4 to 1/2 inch slices (after washing stalks and removing all leaf, which is poisonous). Put in pot and sprinkle with a little bit of sugar (or skip it and add more honey at the end) and just a little bit of water in the bottom of the pot. Simmer for 45 min. or an hour (until the pieces start to fall apart when you stir). Add about a cup of cut up strawberries (or raspberries). Stir in some tapioca flour/starch (or corn starch), a teaspoon or so. Next time I actually will try mixing it with a little bit of water first so I won't get clumps in it. Add about 1 generous cup of honey or however much sugar or honey you need to until it tastes really good and not like a vegetable. (Actually, if you're using sugar, you can add it right from the beginning. I mostly just used honey and added it at the end.) It's really good. Enjoy!
VAL! # 2 pie for me is rhubarb. Let me know when you make one and i'll be up for a piece! (#1 in case you were wondering is pecan. yum.)
ReplyDeleteMichaelanne, I have to agree with your excellent taste in pies. I bet you could just pour this filling into a crust (maybe thicken it a tiny bit more), or I was actually thinking it would be great with a crumble (nuts, oats, buttery crumbs and sugar). I'm too lazy for pie. :)
ReplyDeleteI just made strawberry/rhubarb jam. Yummy! I found both berries and the rhubarb at Maple Acres farm. I used about 4 stalks of 'barb and a pint of berries. Washed, cut them up and stirred in about 1/4 c. sugar and some juice from a very sad orange I found in my crisper. Let it sit over night in the fridge. Next day boiled it down, added more sugar and honey until is tasted good and thickened up. Stored it in a class container and used it today on the kids' pb&j sandwiches. So good! It would make a yummy filling for a cookie/tart, too.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds amazing. We've been gorging on the rhubarb sauce all week and finished it last night. We've been mixing it with our kefir (homemade yogurt-like drink) and it's been a big hit. I'm waiting to get more so I can try some more rhubarb recipes. This one sounds delicious, I like the idea of the orange, that would be a high end pbj.
ReplyDeleteI tried the adding baking soda trick with this next batch, and I felt I should comment that it did cause a science-experiment level of wild bubbling. Just so you're prepared if you try it. I can't tell any kind of improvement, so I don't think I'll do it next time. The stalks I picked myself apparently weren't as red this time--my sauce turned out a disappointingly green color this time and I'm not thinking the taste is quite as good.
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