Yay! Spring rhubarb time!

Hello Friends,
Ha! You thought you were going to make it through this month without me boring you with rhubarb, didn't you? Wrong! The mild winter really put a rocket under the spring rhubarb here. I covered the tiniest signs of pink with the forcing crock back in January, & by the end of February, the stems were forcing up the lid to push their leaves through. It took all of 5 seconds to pop the crock in place - so worth it for some early fresh fruit from the garden. There is nothing like that burst of shocking pink, topped with lime green leaves, on lifting the crock while most of the veggie garden is still cold, bare earth.

Over a kilo of stems, which wasn't bad going considering that I forced it twice last year & also pulled a lot of mature summer stems too, mostly for the freezer. The spring crop has a more delicate flavour & it's a bit of a waste to stew it - not that I don't like stewed rhubarb, it's nice on yoghurt, muesli, for crumbles, etc, but it can loose a lot of its colour & look a bit sludgy. I sliced & baked mine, a la Delia. I just cut the stems into chunks, put them in a large flat dish - I use my lasagne dish - squeeze over the juice of a small orange or satsuma, (I grated over a bit of the zest too), half a tsp of ground ginger, then sprinkle with about 75g sugar. The important thing is not to add any water, so that it cooks in its own juices.

You can see how it goes into the oven, looking really pink. It needs about 40 mins at Gas 4. When it comes out, do you see a dish of brown string? No! It will have kept its gorgeous pinkmongous hues & you will be instantly looking around for a spoon!

You can see from the juices that there is no need for added water. I divided mine up into little pots & froze for desserts, for topping porridge, etc. I only baked the chunky stems. There were a few weedier ones, so in the spirit of our zero food-waste policy here at the People & Cats Republic, I chopped those & made a quick batch of rhubarb & ginger mini-muffins. A dollop of lemon icing on the top & they were good to go......most of them into the freezer, for nice home-baked low-fat little additions to packed lunches, picnics or just for those 'I really, really need cake, but not the 400 calories that come with it' moments!
So yes, I've been playing with rhubarb. The forcing crock has been stood down now until next January, & the rhubarb crown has already started putting out maincrop stems. We have only one crown & it provides ample rhubarb for two people for no expense or effort whatsoever. It gets a few spades of our garden compost chucked over it around November & a can or two of home-brewed comfrey stink during the growing season, & that's it.

Oh, & I've been knitting more socks............

......which have absolutely nothing to do with rhubarb!

Have a good week all,
C x