You can buy rhubarb but if you have a plant in your garden, lucky you! Once the stalks are about 10 inches in length, you can pick. This can be any time during the spring or summer. With so much of it probably being available all at the same time, you will not want to waste those juicy umbrella-shaped vegetables. Many mistakenly refer to rhubarb as a fruit due to its flavour and the fact that it is mainly cooked and used in puddings.
If you have shared with family and friends and still have plenty left, here are just a few things that you can make with rhubarb.
Syrup – mix 1 pound of rhubarb (chopped) with a cup of sugar and 2 cups of water. According to taste, add cinnamon, ginger, vanilla or nutmeg. Boil and simmer for 15 minutes until it begins to look like a syrup. Strain and it is ready to use. Mix with lemonade to make a lovely tasty drink, adding ice-cream if you want to make a cream soda. For a cocktail, add the syrup to gin with lemon. Have fun mixing with your favourite tipples and concoct as many variations as you like.
Jam – pick your favourite jam recipe and add in rhubarb. It combines really well with strawberries and because it is not too sweet, your jam will never taste overly sugary. Prepare 1.25kg of rhubarb, 300g strawberries and mix with 250ml water, lemon juice and 1.1kg sugar to make a delightful jam. Decant the jam into one of your empty vintage-style candle jars from https://julietteathome.com.
Cake – if you love making carrot cake, substitute for rhubarb. It gives a lovely tangy flavour and you end up with a soft and luscious pudding. Add a touch of cinnamon and it will be perfect. You will need:
- 2 cups chopped rhubarb
- ½ cup brown sugar
- ½ cup butter
- 1 egg
- 1 cup yoghurt
- 1 cup flour
- 1 cup semolina flour
- Teaspoon of vanilla, cinnamon and baking powder
Heat oven to 350 degrees. Cream butter and sugar. Add egg and vanilla. Add rhubarb and sugar. Add all dry ingredients and mix. Spread into a cake tin and bake for approx. 50 minutes.
Recipes galore
And if that is not enough, take a look on the internet and you will find recipes for rhubarb ice cream, soups and pickles. If you think of it more as a vegetable (which it is) than a fruit, you will begin to see that it is an incredibly versatile food that is as tasty as it is healthy. My mum also used to mix cooked and sweetened rhubarb into cold custard to make a rhubarb fool, which we loved as kids.
Never eat the leaves as they are toxic. However, added to water and heated up, they make a wonderful natural greenfly killer for your beloved plants. On the good side, rhubarb is also very high in vitamin K which provides healthy bones and may even help to prevent diseases such as Alzheimer's.
With so my wonderful things to make with rhubarb, the problem is knowing where to begin!
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