wannaGROW: Rhubarb (and Honeyed Cardamom Rhubarb Compote)

Life with a monster garden means a monster amount of work. It means loads of weeding, digging, pruning, planting, composting, and so on. In the past three years, we've brought our yard from an overgrown disaster to a more intentionally overgrown disaster. hah! We've pulled out some things, figured out what needs to stay, read books, and learned from Mom. We're trying to turn our not-completely-black thumbs into green ones. It's a work in progress. But that seems to be the underlying lesson that I hear from most gardeners... you learn by doing.

So, we're doing and we're doing our best.

One thing that seems to require very little effort in our garden is this lovely little patch of rhubarb in the back corner. The first year, we didn't even know it was there. The second year, we discovered it and that was about it. This third year, we managed to get there early, weed around it (courtesy of Des's elbow grease and contributions) and found ourselves harvesting a great amount of rhubarb!

RHUBARB TIPS

There are amazing tips on working with rhubarb on Canadian Gardening's site. What I did learn about harvesting was that you DO NOT cut the stalks to harvest them. Rather, you should grasp the stalk at the base, pull gently, and twist. Apparently this will encourage the root to continue to produce, as opposed to cutting which discourages it altogether. I think that little leafy bit (hidden by the big stalk that you just removed) is the whole reason for the harvesting technique. That little leaf will become a big rhubarb leaf and stalk soon enough!

Also, remove the flower stalks as they appear. If you leave these, the plant will put its energy into developing the flowers and become dormant for the season, as opposed to continuing to produce edible stalks for you. Oh, and a BIG no to eating the leaves. This is not the time to add variety to your garden salad. The leaves are toxic but they can be composted safely or turned into a helpful pesticide for your flowers like the one here. Just don't spray it on anything that you'll eat later. The leaves remain toxic even in this form.

I remember rhubarb in many forms when I was a kid. We grew up eating rhubarb fresh from the ground... a stalk rinsed under the garden hose with a tiny container of sugar. I remember my Dad making stewed rhubarb and eating it on anything... ice cream, toast, or just a straight bowlful of it. He loved it. Here's an idea for something slightly different for your rhubarb harvest...

Flavoured Salts

Lately it seems that a significant number of my dining out experiences have involved an addition of beautiful and intentionally paired flavoured salts. As an accompaniment, they have taken whatever I was eating to another level, further emphasizing a particular flavour or element, and enhancing the dish wonderfully. On a purely aesthetic level, they add something unique to the plating or presentation of elements, whether artfully scattered on the plate beside your food or in tiny little dishes set on the table.

Why just add salt when you can add a citrus salt? Or a curried salt? Togarashi? Chili pepper?

The basic principle is to combine salt and seasoning in your food processor or blender. Blitz to combine. I used a ratio of one cup of kosher salt to about two teaspoons of flavour (be that the zest or paprika).

I combined salt with the zest of one lemon for a beautiful citrus salt. (If you haven't let the zest dry, then you'll want to let the combination air dry before sealing it away.) Good on chicken or fish, all sorts of veg, your favourite salad... Momma R wants to try it on fruit, like a beautiful ripe tomato.

The combination of kosher salt and two teaspoons of smoked paprika yielded an incredible flavour addition to meat or vegetables (or as I raved before... with pretty hard boiled eggs).

The combinations are endless... but such a little thing can add so much to your dish.

Orange and Blackberry Marmalade

I've been trying to be better about making sure that I use up all of the odds and ends in the fridge lately, rather than finding myself pitching formerly useable food after I left it to spoil in the far corners of the crisper. Oh, the shame. It has certainly never been intentional but sometimes you lose sight of a lemon or bit of herbs or that last few baby zucchini. It takes a slightly concerted effort to adequately survey the fridge and plan accordingly but it's the right sort of effort that reminds you that food is not disposable and that sometimes the best bits of creativity stem from using what is at the ready, as opposed to running off to the shops.

This Orange and Blackberry Marmalade was just one of those bits of creativity. Nothing was yet spoiled but it was one of those situations where I didn't get through as much fruit as I had planned that week and was faced with a slew of oranges and berries on the edge. In avoiding a killer kanker sore, I opted to do something else with the oranges rather than set a bowl before myself and start peeling.

Now, this is not a very sweet marmalade. It gives you just a hint of sweetness but really leaves it to the sweetness of the fruit. It's more about the fruit in general. (Though I am convinced that, thinned out, this could be a decent glaze on meat.... thoughts?) Far be it from me to dictate how sweet your fruity concoctions should be. We eat more than enough sugar around here, so it feels good to me to reduce it here and the low sugar pectin allows for that. But tweak away! Add some honey or agave nectar for a more complex sweetness. Add some more sugar or brown sugar. Up to you.

The best thing to do is to taste your marmalade after it stews together a bit (maybe at the 40 minute mark or so) and decide if it suits your taste, keeping in mind that the orange rind may be a bit tough still. Just remember you're tasting for sweetness not doneness!

Meyer Lemon Marmalade

I love these meyer lemons... the warm yellow peel, orange perfume, underlying sweetness, then resounding tartness just leaves your senses debating... Orange? Lemon? Orange? Lemon?

All love aside, I had now made a beautiful lemon curd and still had another ten or twelve lemons to go! I figured a nice and easy way to use up at least 4 or 5 lemons would be to make a marmalade (not to mention, you could do this with just about any fruit and use up any super ripe bits in your fridge). Very little prep involved and a lovely return on investment.

You could easily preserve this through water bath canning but it's a small recipe yielding about two cups of marmalade. We're making fast work of it here, so you may as well...

Meyer Lemon Curd

When faced with a veritable vat (yep... a "veritable vat") of meyer lemons, I did what any person, who did not want to see them go to waste, would do... I made all things lemon. And I mean all things lemon. Doug probably doesn't want to see another lemon cross our threshold for quite some time.

So, one of the first things that I wanted to make on this lemon journey was lemon curd. Momma R made some lemon curd at Christmas and it was heavenly, so I figured I would give it a shot myself.

Apparently it freezes nicely, so you can portion some out for use (refrigerated for about a week) then freeze the remainder in an ice cube tray (then transfer the frozen cubes into a plastic bag) to thaw as needed to serve as that perfect accompaniment to a scone or yogurt or fruit or whatever else suits your fancy!