New Seniors

I always love seeing those beautiful crimson red stalks of Rhubarb (Rheum rhabarbarum) at the grocery store and farmer’s markets. Since you can find it all year-round. I’m always surprised by the number of people who have never prepared rhubarb, as well as the number of people who have never even tasted rhubarb!!

When buying Rhubarb choose fresh crisp stalks. These fresh raw stalks are crisp with a strong tart taste. Discard the leaves (they’re toxic), trim the ends and peel off any stringy covering before use.

Rhubarb requires sweetening to minimize the extreme tartness. Commonly the plant’s stalks are cooked and used in pies, tarts, puddings, breads, jam, jellies and refreshing beverages. It also makes a delicious sauce for ice cream.

Cooking Rhubarb:
One way is to cut up the stalks into one-inch pieces and stew them (boil in water). Just barely cover the stalks with water, add ½ to ¾ cup of sugar for every pound of rhubarb. You can add cinnamon and/or nutmeg to taste. The sliced stalks are cooked until soft. It is actually not necessary to add water, since rhubarb contains a lot of water naturally, so an alternative cooking method is to simmer slowly (without adding water) letting the rhubarb cook in its own juice.

At this stage, cooked with strawberries or apples as a sweetener, or with root ginger, rhubarb makes excellent jam.

To make a “sauce” of rhubarb, continue simmering 45 minutes to one hour at medium heat, until the sauce is mostly smooth and the remaining stalks can easily be pierced with a fork, which yield a smooth tart-sweet sauce with a flavor similar to sweet & sour sauce. This sauce is usually stored in the refrigerator and eaten cold, like applesauce.

The sauce, when stewed over medium heat only a short time (about 20 minutes) and with only a little water so that the rhubarb stalks stay mostly discrete, may be used as filling for pies, tarts, and crumbles. Sometimes stewed strawberries are mixed with the rhubarb to make Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie.

Quick & Easy Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie

INGREDIENTS
Prepared Pie crust (feel free to make your own, if you’d like)
2 Cups sugar
2/3 Cup flour
1/4 teaspoon of salt
3 Cups rhubarb, but into ½ inch pieces
3 Cups strawberries, sliced
1 teaspoon of grated orange peel
1 Tablespoon butter, if desired (optional)

METHOD
Preheat oven to 400°F.

Prepare pie crust in pie pan, set aside.

In a large mixing bowl add the sugar, flour and salt. Add rhubarb, strawberries, and orange peel, and combine together well. Pour strawberry-rhubarb mixture into prepared pie crust. Top with butter, if desired. Cover with top crust and add slits.

Bake at 400°F for 20 minutes. Reduce heat to 350°F, and bake an additional 30-40 minutes longer (40 to 50 minutes longer if doing a 10-inch pie) until crust is golden and pie is bubbly. Cool pie pan on a rack.

Serve warm or cold. If you do cool to room temperature, the juices will have more time to thicken.

Delicious with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or vanilla frozen yogurt!

Cooks Note: You may want to place the pie pan on a baking sheet to avoid any possible messy overflow in your oven.

Delicious Rhubarb Streusel Muffins

INGREDIENTS
Filling:
1 1/2 Cup chopped rhubarb
1/3 Cup water
1 Tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1/2 Cup sugar
1 1/2 Tablespoons of cornstarch

Muffin Mix:
2 Cups flour
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 Cup sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 Cup buttermilk
1/3 Cup butter, melted

Streusel Topping:
1/2 Cup brown sugar
1/3 Cup flour
1/4 Cup butter, softened
1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon, if desired

METHOD
Combine the filling ingredients in medium sauce pan. Cook over low heat stirring until thickened. Set aside.

Mix muffin dry ingredients and muffin wet ingredients separately, then combine.

Fill muffin tins half full with batter. Dot with rhubarb filling, and fill with the remaining batter. Sprinkle the topping evenly over muffins.

Bake at 400 degrees F. for 20 minutes.

Enjoy!

SaucyGirl

Chef Helena Spensatelli’s passion for food began early in her childhood, as she was inspired watching her Italian grandfather prepare incredible dishes at home and in the huge hotel kitchens where he presided as Master Chef. Helena has been a private chef/caterer/food consultant for over 25 years. Raised in Maryland, she now lives in Los Angeles, California where she is the owner of Saucy Girls Kitchen (saucygirlskitchen.com) and the Director of Chefs, Inc., a recreational cooking school located in Los Angeles.

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