Rhubarb is Great
On the allotment, I managed to inherit two large patches of rhubarb with some impressive crowns. I was actually surprised at how early you can harvest rhubarb, even without forcing it. See, I still have a lot to learn about growing veggies.
So off I trundled on Sunday, having decided that rhubarb crumble was on the menu for dessert, following our Sunday (veggie) roast. Whilst being blown to pieces, I pulled up a whole armful of sticks of rhubarb of varying sizes and thicknesses. Here’s a completely au naturel action shot of me approaching aforementioned rhubarb:
The ones that were far too thick and stringy were cut up (to aid decomposition - yep, MORE compost talk) and thrown (literally, from afar) onto the compost heap. I’m rubbish with portion sizes so I kept pulling and snipping the leaves off, and deciding that I didn’t have enough for one rhubarb crumble, would pull some more. This went on for a fair few minutes. I have a fear of cooking and not producing enough food for a meal that will leave me feeling satisfied. Or full to bursting. So as a consequence, I pretty much always cook far too much.
Now, bear in mind that there are only two of us here at the Smallest Smallholding. This is how much rhubarb I ended up with for my one crumble:
Once I got home, I washed and chopped up the rhubarb, cooked it with about 3/4 of an inch of water in the saucepan, and added about 6oz sugar. Once it was soft, and wafting delicious sweet acidic smells out of the kitchen, I strained it a bit and had to divide it into two dishes. I rubbed together 8oz of plain flour, 4oz of (fair trade) demerera sugar and 4oz (organic) butter together for the topping, sprinkled it on liberally, put a little more sugar on top and put both in the oven at gas mark 5. After about 20 minutes, my rhubarb crumbleS were ready. We served them up with Green & Black’s caramel and hazlenut ice cream.
Fan-bloody-tastic. My first allotment harvest was a veritable success.
April 16th, 2008 at 11:50 am
And i bet it tasted better than anything you have ever had from the shops! My first ever crop was radishes and they tasted fantastic! You are lucky to have inherited a crop, my friend has just taken on a bare patch of earth!
April 17th, 2008 at 9:50 am
You inspired me to go and pick some rhubarb last night. We’ve got a crown in the back garden that I planted last year so this was the first harvest from it. Only got 3 bits but they’ve been chopped and frozen ready to be joined by the next load in a week or so… Unlike you I think we’re going to have to work for our crumble… lol
April 17th, 2008 at 6:22 pm
That sounds really good. I’ve never had rhubarb but I think I will try to grow it this year since it can be harvested so early.
April 21st, 2008 at 12:19 pm
You really should try home-made mayo, it’s so simple - the only problem I had was the hand blender kept overheating LOL - and tastes like nothing else.
I’ll look up the recipe if you’re interested