Cooky Cat

What's Your Rhubarb?

If you don't know the expression, look it up. OK, it means what's your gripe, squabble, quarrel. Just like in, "What's your beef?" (Jerkey!) Without getting into a whole research thing about the origin of how rhubarb is associated with squabbles, we surmise it has something to do with how it is so sour tasting. Like, So, what's curdled your cream?" Is that an expression? 

Whatever. We have no quarrel with rhubarb. It is the ruby jewel of the summer garden. We just snagged some at a roadside farm stand. At $1.99 per pound (City folk, eat your heart out.), we bought a whole big bunch. The photo above is our own set of stalks just before cutting and stewing. Dig that color. It just screams vitamin C. And, it's alliterative relative, vitamin K. So, eat more rhubarb.

Rhubarb is not all that easy to find. It is not in high demand as far as this Cat can see. It is definitely still one of the items on the ever-shorter growing list of truly seasonal items. It's a vegetable, but classed and treated like a fruit. Also, it sometimes fetches too high a high price in the supermarket. And, it's fairly quick to lose it's vigor on the shelf. We prefer fresh cut from the garden. It requires some careful cleaning and trimming. A little labor intensive. But the results are worth it.

Yet, so simple to cook. Just stew cut up rhubarb for a short time in a little clean water, sweetened with good sugar (not beet sugar, which has a taste we don't like) and there it is. Careful with the amount of sugar. You want to keep that tartness factor in play. Half a cup of sugar to about 2-3 quarts of cut rhubarb does it for us.

Spoon warm over some rich strawberry ice cream. A dessert that rules.



Here's everything you need to know about rhubarb.

And, here's an excellent recipe for Rhubarb Coffee Cake. It's Cooky Cat tested and APPROVED!