The Best Spring Tonic

Since it seems to be a popular topic on a few blogs right now, I have to jump in and do my own post touting the virtues of the lovely (I said lovely, not lowly!) rhubarb plant.

It's my understanding that pioneers in our country often referred to rhubarb as a "spring tonic." (Exactly what a spring tonic does for us may be left to your own interpretation. Something about getting the bile flowing through our bodies . . . I don't know that I want to think about it too much.) However, it doesn't take much imagination to understand that the old-timers had had very little resembling fresh food in many months by the time the first fruit of the season in the form of rhubarb was ready to be eaten.

Personally, spring tonic or not, I love rhubarb and can hardly wait until mine is ready for that first picking. Which is what occurred day before yesterday on this here little homestead.

What did I make for our first rhubarb dish of the year? Oh, the decisions!

I settled on Rhubarb Cream Pie. I found this recipe three years ago in a book entitled, "Life's Little Rhubarb Cookbook: 101 Rhubarb Recipes" written by Joan Bestwick. In the book it's called Rhubarb Cream Delight Dessert but it's a PIE, people, so I renamed it Rhubarb Cream Pie. And it is soooo good! The only change I made to the original recipe is that I make a rhubarb sauce to spoon over each individual piece of pie when it's served.

RHUBARB CREAM PIE

For the crust: Mix 1 cup flour and 1/4 cup sugar. Then cut in 1/2 cup butter. Pat/press this mixture into a 10" pie plate.

For rhubarb layer: Combine 3 to 3-1/2 cups fresh rhubarb cut in 1/2" pieces, 1/2 cup sugar and 1 tablespoon flour. Toss lightly and put into crust.

Bake the above in a 375 degree oven for 15 minutes.

While this is baking, prepare the ---

Cream layer: Beat 12 oz. softened cream cheese and 1/2 cup sugar until fluffy. Beat in 2 eggs, one at a time.

Pour cream layer over hot rhubarb layer,

smooth it out with a spatula and bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

Topping layer: Combine 1 cup sour cream, 2 tablespoons sugar and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract. Spread over hot layers.

Chill pie before serving with Rhubarb Sauce spooned over top of each piece.

RHUBARB SAUCE

In a medium saucepan, bring 3/4 cup sugar and 1/2 cup water to a boil. Add 4 cups chopped fresh rhubarb. Simmer about 10 minutes stirring frequently.

Store pie and sauce in the refrigerator.

When it comes to rhubarb, I've always been a purist favoring a good, plain, ol' two-crust rhubarb pie as my favorite. (Well okay, maybe with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top.) But since discovering this recipe, I've been mightily swayed toward saying it's my new favorite. Try it and see what you think.

I've Got This Thing For Rhubarb

If you've been reading my blog for any length of time, you know I really love rhubarb in most any edible size, shape or form.

I came across this "Ode to Rhubarb" blurb on a cooking site and got a bang out of it because it so describes how I feel about that much misunderstood fruit . . . which is technically classified as a vegetable, but we won't get into that.

Here's the quote:

ODE TO RHUBARB

Rhubarb!  You lovely, stringy red stlak!  How maligned you

are for your sourness, but how much the

better you are for it!

How often are you ruined, senselessly

with the addition of strawberries, as though you

were just a filler, or were unable to

stand up on your own.

How you remind us that nothing can

ever truly be sweet without being sour!

How you keep us from lazier, sweet cherry-laden desserts!

How do I love thee, rhubarb?

Truly, I am unable to count the ways.

Hee-hee.  Yup, that pretty well describes my feeling about rhubarb.

I have just one rhubarb plant in my garden but it serves me well.  So far (I first harvested some on May 29th this year and that was rushing it, but I simply couldn't wait any longer), I've made two pies, one pan of Rhubarb Crunch, one Rhubarb Upside Down Cake and put four containers of rhubarb sauce in the freezer.  (We like it during the winter on our oatmeal, or over a dollop of vanilla ice cream on a slice of pound cake.)  Also stashed in the freezer are the ready-to-go bagged up fillings for four pies we'll enjoy this winter.  I guess I'd have to say that my current very favorite rhubarb dessert is Rhubarb Cream Pie.  I've yet to make it this year, but I know I will before the season is over.

I can't think of rhubarb without fond memories of Rosie's Cafe, a small family owned restaurant Papa Pea and I frequented in the early years of our marriage.  I wrote a post about Rosie's (and rhubarb and pie crust) back when I first started blogging in 2008.  If I don't come up with anything stupendously interesting (ha!) about which to blog tomorrow, I'll repost it.

Finally Sunshine!

As usual this time of year, I'm going a little overboard baking with rhubarb now that it's available in the garden.  (I do love rhubarb!)

Made my favorite rhubarb cake day before yesterday and Papa Pea ate the last piece with some milk after a hearty breakfast this morning. 

We had a visit today with the four-year old twins my daughter has every Saturday.  The little guy loves stalks of rhubarb dipped in sugar, but Chicken Mama gave him a small dish of honey to dip into today, and he thought that was pretty good.  The little gal suggested I should bake a strawberry pie when I told her I was going to bake our (calorie-laden) Rhubarb Cream Pie.  (She's not a rhubarb fan.)  She's gonna have to wait another month or so for any strawberries from this garden.

And I did get that pie baked but not until late this afternoon.  Now it's cooling in the refridge and won't be sampled until tomorrow.  Can hardly wait.

We had more gray, drippiness until mid-afternoon when the sun broke through the clouds and our temperature soared into the high 60s.  Our warmest temp so far this spring, I think.

Tomorrow and Monday are supposed to be sunny so with the help of my Under Gardener (that's Papa Pea), I'll be getting the recently received fifty new strawberry plants in the ground.  And lots of emerging weeds out of the ground.

Still waiting for the planted onions, radishes and Sweet Peas to show their little green sprouts.  They've had plenty of moisture now so with a bit of warm weather, they may make an appearance.

Hope you're all having a great Memorial Day Weekend!

Pie-O-My

I love baking pies. I love eating pies. I could live on pies. (I once worked with a gal who was a tad overweight and she decided to go on a [yet another] diet. But this time she made the decision to restrict her eating to something she really liked so she could stick with her diet. You guessed it. Pie. I know it sounds crazy [and I truly don't recommend it . . . or do I? Hmmm . . . ] but she ate nothing but pie for a month and lost weight. Then she died. I'm kidding! About the dying part.)

I first dipped my fingers into the food business by making pies for a good friend at her restaurant. I would get up at 4 a.m. each morning, drive 15 miles into town, and bake pies before the restaurant opened. After I owned my own restaurant, I incorporated pies into my menu there. The best sellers? Raspberry-Cranberry and Chocolate Velvet, closely followed by Bittersweet Chocolate.

Our daughter tells a good story of going to school (she was in her early teens at the time) and complaining bitterly to her friends regarding the fact that she and her dad had had to sample three more pies the night before because of the constant experimenting with new recipes I was doing. Her friends looked at her as if she had a screw loose. Having to sample pies day after day? Omigod, what a cruel and evil mother she had!

What's my favorite pie? How long do you have? I guess it would have to be a fruit pie. (If I rule out Banana Cream Pie first which my daughter always makes me for my requested birthday "cake.") Rhubarb. Cherry. Raspberry. PEACH! Our good neighbors gave us some frozen peaches (from friends of theirs out of the area) last winter and I made a peach pie that was UN-BE-LIEV-ABLE! It wasn't my pie baking skills but rather those sent-from-heaven peaches. Mmm, mmm. Just thinking about them. 'Scuse me while I gain control of myself.

But, bottom line, can you beat a good, old-fashioned apple pie? Come fall each year, I get such a hankering for apple pie I can hardly stand it. I've been waiting for some newly harvested organic apples to come in at our local whole foods co-op and when I popped in there this last weekend, a friend and clerk alerted me to some with just the right amount of tang (we sampled one on the spot) for baking.

Here's what I baked with those apples this morning. And unless somebody drops in, Roy and I are going to eat the whole thing ourselves. Yessiree, we are.

Forecasted Rain A No-Show

Supposedly there was a 70% chance for rain today, but we saw nary a drop. So even though I have inside painting that's calling my name, I spent the day working in the garden taking advantage of the great weather.

Yesterday I gave up trying to till up the sod on two sides of the field garden. The worst two sides, of course. I got the "easy" sides done and then gave up for the day. But today . . . I tackled and conquered those two sides where the sod had grown in to almost a width of a foot in some spots. Me and my wonderful Mantis tiller did it. Truth be told, I got shaken and tossed around something awful. To the extent that I think a couple of my internal organs may be residing in new locations now, but darned if I didn't get it done!

I also got our first picking of rhubarb today. Even though I felt like getting right into a hot shower and then my jammies after dinner, I just had to make a Rhubarb Cream Pie for tomorrow. I had enough rhubarb for some sauce, too, so I cooked that up.

This is just a random picture I snapped tonight at chore time. That's our handsome Light Sussex rooster. He's the last of the breed (sob) after the last Light Sussex hen got picked off by that blankety-blank hawk last week. With him are two male wild Mallard ducks who have taken up residence on our pond. We're pretty sure their mates are across the driveway in the woods sitting on nests right now. The ducks always come up into the poultry yard to help themselves to the scratch feed we toss to the chickens morning and night. They've become pretty tame and when they hear someone come out shaking the scratch in a can, they come waddling up from the pond.

That's all to report for today. If it doesn't rain, I think I'm going to plant potatoes tomorrow.

I Can Rattle on a Long Time About Nothing

Whadda day!  Yesterday we worked on wood all morning and got a big bunch done.  A quick soup lunch and back out to finish up the last we wanted to get split and in the wood shed.

Then Papa Pea cleaned up the flack from our splitting efforts and limbed a tree we took down on Monday.

Our wood working area in the back is smack up again heavy woods on rapidly rising ground and there was a really tall dead poplar tree leaning toward our work area.  Hubby refused to do any wood working back there until we took the tree down.  He explained that if the tree fell on him, I'd have to work up all the wood by myself.  Hmm, made sense.  We took the tree down.

While he was occupied with clean-up, I used my time to split the last four bundles of slabwood (for kindling) we had left over from last fall when I filled the kindling bin.  I'll need plenty more before the bin is full again but the bundles were stored in the small wood shed that we're filling with wood so I wanted to get them out of there.

Next we tackled the lawn mowing.  That's a job I can't say either of us love.  We simply have too dang much lawn to mow.  But before you conjure up a picture of a manicured, green lushness of Kentucky Bluegrass, let me explain that our "lawn" is primarily green weeds we (try to) keep mowed.  This lawn (aka weeds with a crewcut) goes around the blueberries, around the raspberries, around the fruit trees, around the raised beds, around the field garden, around the pumpkin patch . . . you get the idea.  No great expanse that you can easily mow in neat rows.  It involves lots of ins and outs, pushes and pulls, back and forths.  Finding a way of eliminating these areas that need to be mowed has been a topic of discussion in our house for a few years.  We both agree we want to do away with as much of it as we can, we just haven't figured out how to do it.

Anywho, we attacked the lawn mowing with two mowers (both mechanical and human) and got it done in a few couple hours.  We squeak by mowing only every 10-14 days, so now we don't have to think about that for a while.  (By the way, why can't a freshly mowed yard stay looking freshly mowed for more than a day?)

My potatoes.  I was really stressing about my potatoes.  About them failing to poke through the soil to see the light of day.  Supposedly, most taters will sprout within 8-12 days.  Yesterday was Day #12 for mine and during my early morning garden stroll, I saw nary a one.  But hallelujah, right before I started mowing in the afternoon, I counted six of the little buggers showing.  Phew!  I was not looking forward to having to replant them.

We had Stuffed Green Peppers and corn for dinner last night.  (I had to figure out a way to get a picture into this wordy post, didn't I?)  The stuffed peppers are one of my "convenience" foods from the freezer and last night I needed convenience.  

For dessert, a little piece of Rhubarb Cream Pie.  (Gosh, that piece looks HUGE in the picture, doesn't it?  Well . . . maybe it wasn't so little.)  What did you have for dinner?

Back in the Saddle?

Well, at least I'm trying to find a stepping block that will get me back into the saddle of regular blogging.

I have my computer back up and operating which is a big relief after the ups and downs of the past month.  Seems we've found a good, honest, fair, easy-to-deal-with computer guy whom we are now calling our new best friend.  The first computer "guru" we dealt with charged us three times as much as this second one but didn't do anything to solve the problems I was having.  So it goes.  I just feel very happy to have found someone else we can rely upon when computer glitches pop up that can't be taken care of "in house."

Being without my computer has given me the time to get completely caught up on my whole list of summer tasks.  Hahahohohoheeheehahaha!  Summer time and the livin' is easy.  Well, yes, but because of so many things we want to do, both work and recreation related, that simply can't be done in other times of the year up here in our neck o' the woods, it tends to make it all on the frantic side.  Keeps us hoppin', that's for sure.

I want to give my garden some press time here on the blog.  And I promise to gather some pictures to post soon.  Yesterday, I made my first real harvest of strawberries. 

The total haul was four and three-quarter pounds of sweet, juicy, lusciousness.  We ate a few, shared a few and had strawberries and cream for breakfast this morning.  Only two of our three varieties are producing so far with the heaviest yielding variety (Cavendish) of last year still to start.  I can hardly wait for the first Strawberry Cream Pie, and I've promised to make a Strawberry-Rhubarb pie for Papa Pea this year.

Our regular rains continue with a couple of heavy thunderstorms rolling through last night.  Our grass is so long we might have to bale it when it dries enough for chopping it down.  Right now it's solidly covered with white clover which our bees are loving.

Our little tourist town is full, full, FULL of vacationers so I try to get in and out as early as possible when it's necessary.

I've missed you all (very much!) during this past month of periods without connection to the Internet and am trying to get caught back up.  So now, into that saddle and . . . giddy-up!

Out of the Root Cellar, Into the Freezer

More notes on last season's garden harvests . . .  in the freezer.

Broccoli - I have trouble growing broccoli.  Or I should say, I have trouble growing broccoli without worms.  This past year I protected all the broccoli plants from the dreaded white cabbage moths (who have the audacity to lay their eggs from which the worms hatch in my broccoli) by covering them with our newly constructed screen cages.

How'd that work?  Well, upon soaking the freshly harvested broccoli heads in warm, salt water (to kill any worms), I'm sad to say I found the broccoli was not worm-free.  But only a few worms were sent to their demise as they floated out compared to many, many of them in years past.  So the screen cages did help.  Somewhat.  I think.

We ate a lot of fresh broccoli right from the garden, but only enough for 12 meals made it to the freezer for winter consumption.  No matter what I try, frozen broccoli lacks that crisp crunchiness I get when cooking fresh, non-frozen broccoli.  But the frozen broccoli makes excellent Cream of Broccoli soup so that's most likely where the remaining packages will go.

Brussels Sprouts - These were grown under screen cages also.  Nary one worm was found.  (Hurray!)  We ate many (we both love Brussels sprouts) as they matured during the late summer/early fall.  Five servings (a serving being enough for the two of us for one meal) made it to the freezer.  They are long gone.  I had 16 plants in the garden.  Is this an inefficient vegetable for me to raise, or am I doing something wrong?

Peas - I put up 42 servings of shell peas.  We love 'em and eat several servings a week.  They are the first preserved vegetable we run out of.  There are still some in the freezer, but I'm not going to check to see how many because then I'll be sad there are so few left.

Beans - Oh, my.  I really overdid it on the beans this year.  I usually plant one 16' row of green beans and one 16' row of yellow beans.  That gives us an ample supply for the year.  This year my first plantings did not germinate well at all.  So I panicked, went crazy and planted beans in every spare piece of garden soil I could find.  I ended up with waaay too many beans.  Even after giving a lot away.  Naturally, I couldn't waste any so I put them up.  I mix the green and yellow beans together (for pretty on the plate) and ended up with 75 servings.  We will have enough beans until the 2014 crop comes in.  I'm sure.

Green Peppers - I made 34 servings of Stuffed Green Peppers.  We have them about once a week and I've served them a couple of times as a company meal.  We have plenty left.  I also put about 2 quarts of chopped green peppers in the freezer to use in cooking over this winter.

Chives - I prepped and froze 11 one-cup size containers of chives.  I love them and use them all winter long.  With luck, I shouldn't run out before the chives pop up this spring.

Blueberries - Will we ever have enough blueberries?  We are already down to the last three gallon bags of them.  (Plus, adequate jars of jam on the pantry shelves.)

Raspberries - Can you have too many raspberries?  In our case, the answer is yes.  Today I counted 7 gallon bags of them still languishing in the freezer.  That is probably more than we can use before the next crop comes in.  I made jam and concentrate, but still ended up with too many in the freezer.  If this coming season is good, I may sell some of the fresh berries to our local co-op.

Strawberries - I still have 8 quarts of frozen smooshed strawberries.  These were intended to be used in smoothies.  However, this winter has been so cold we find ourselves not wanting (cold) smoothies as a breakfast.  Or a lunch.  Or anytime of the day.  I've been experimenting using the strawberries up in baked goods, and made a really good strawberry cobbler earlier this week.  This cobbler may make more appearances on our table this winter yet.  And, yes, there is plenty of strawberry jam put by.

Rhubarb - Only one rhubarb pie filling left (started with 5, but I'll make more this coming season) and 2 pint containers of rhubarb sauce.

That's it for this post.  Only the food put by for the poultry to cover yet.  That will be next . . . and much shorter!