Remembering Rhubarb

Run to your garden and fetch some rhubarb. If it's past its prime, I hope you remembered to save some of those red and green stalks in the freezer.

Following up on a serious craving for something baked and featuring rhubarb, I got a rude awakening late last month at the supermarket. A little one-pound package of trimmed rhubarb stalks cost $5.99 per pound! No! I will not pay that much.

My daughter, who lives in the country, has a neighbor who grows a massive amount of this vegetable turned fruit with its strong tart taste. Sweetened with lots of sugar, rhubarb is best known as a featured ingredient in strawberry-rhubarb pie.

Anyway, the neighbor told my daughter to help herself to the rhubarb (which she hadn't done), so I hurried over to their house (the neighbor's) and asked if I might pick some. Sure, they said, although they felt it was past its prime.

Much as I love pies, particularly strawberry-rhubarb, I wanted to try something new and inventive. Invented by someone else, but new to me, that is. So, I headed to Pinterest, created a Rhubarb Board and did a search on rhubarb. (P.S. You can find me on Pinterest.com at "Kathleen Read Richardson".)

The result was that I found lots of rhubarb photos and numerous promising recipes. I decided to start with one for COCONUT RHUBARB SCONES and then moved on to RHUBARB KUCHEN. Both turned out to be delicious, and I'll be making them again and again.

You can find the recipe for COCONUT RHUBARB SCONES at a Toronto food blog called Buttered Up!

* Be sure to add just a little sugar to the rhubarb as directed in the beginning of this recipe. Stirring in all of the sugar early on will draw too much liquid from the rhubarb and will produce a soggy product.

* One change I made... after lining a baking sheet with parchment paper (Don't you just love parchment paper!), I spread the mixture over the entire pan, making one giant scone. Once they baked and cooled, I used a pizza cutter to cut them into triangles.

* I still set the oven at 425-degrees Fahrenheit. It took 25 minutes to cook. Depending on your oven, the temperature might need to be lowered and/or the cooking time lengthened or shortened.

* Slivered almonds may be sprinkled on top before baking. Pat them gently to set them in place.

RHUBARB KUCHEN comes from Donalynn at The Creekside Cook and this recipe fills two 8 or 9-inch pans. I eventually ate my way through one (really, I shared it!) and one awaits my pleasure in the freezer.

* Rhubarb Kuchen has three layers ~ batter, filling and topping.

* Unlike the Coconut Rhubarb Scones, you'll be adding all the sugar specified to the rhubarb for a syrupy filling.

ITALICS..................
One more hint when making either of these rhubarb delights... Keep a small metal nail file and a nail brush by your kitchen sink. You'll need both for cleaning under your nails.

Coconut Salmon ~ Mmm, Mmm, good!

I had an urge to make pudding last night. What to use? A bit of brown rice in the cupboard and part of a huge can of coconut milk! That’ll do the trick. But, what to do with the leftover coconut milk?

Salmon thawing in the frig for supper and why wouldn’t coconut milk fit the bill? Think tropics -- hand-caught fish and coconuts falling off tall trees. Well, enough of that talk. After all I’m in the middle of New York State. The nearest coconut tree I know of is at the Smithsonian Mall -- in the Conservatory of the U.S. Botanic Gardens -- in Washington DC, five hours to the south.

A basic pan-seared salmon fillet is my favorite. A couple of tablespoons of flour, salt & pepper. Warm the pan over medium heat and add a tablespoon of olive oil and one of butter. Dredge the salmon fillet in the flour mixture and shake off the excess.

As soon as the bottom is browned and the fish looks cooked just 1/8-1/4 inch up, turn the fish with tongs. Cook for another 3-5 minutes then start spooning on coconut milk. The milk will sizzle away when it drizzles down onto the pan. Keep spooning for a minute or two.

Turn off the heat under the pan and place the fillet on a plate. Cover the fish with a “tent” of aluminum foil tucked tightly around the edges of the plate.





Stir a few more spoonfuls of coconut milk into the pan.

After a minute or two, remove the foil tent and spoon the extra sauce onto the salmon.

I completed my meal with a mixture of mesclun (baby field greens) and arugula from my garden, topped with EVOO and red wine vinegar.




TV TRAY



As a single person, I sometimes often take my meal to the living room and eat off a TV tray while watching a movie or documentary. TV tray meals are usually carefully prepared thrown together with whatever happens to be in the kitchen, no measurements recorded.

Tortillas, ham, sour cream, chives, cream cheese, tomato, provolone cheese; broccoli


(Last but not least, I hope you'll take a few minutes to visit my other blog, CORNING NY STEP BY STEP -- a view of the city where I live.)

Visit to a U-Pick Farm and Lemon-Coconut Bars

A pickin’ we will go
A pickin’ we will go
Heigh-ho, the derry-o
A pickin’ we will go

And so we did... my daughter, son-in-law and their two boys, and my son who’s in town visiting. We spent a beautiful Sunday afternoon picking first apples of the season and raspberries at Reisinger’s Apple Country near Watkins Glen in New York State’s Southern Tier.

We picked Ginger Gold and McIntosh Apples

Nearby were two rows of apples not yet ready for picking, but look at the gorgeous "honey" color (enlarge the photo) of the apples in the row in the back of this photo.

My 5-year old grandson insisted on having his own wagon to pull. No more riding for him. He and his dad are headed to rows of raspberries. Most of our apples are in another wagon.

Raspberries were a bit sparse, but we picked a few quarts and they were oh-so-good!

My son-in-law, grandson, and son picking raspberries in the hot, hot sun. Notice the log cabin chicken coop in the back.

Sometimes a product just calls to me and on a recent trip to Wegmans, it was a basket full of shiny, firm lemons. I brought one home with me and before heading out to the u-pick farm, I made lemon bars.

They cooled while I was away. What a treat to come home to--they tasted amazing--a sweet and sour filling in a simple crust. The coconut in the filling was a nice touch, but next time I might add the coconut to the crust. This is the simplest of recipes and will work well on either informal or formal occasions.

Betty Crocker hasn’t lost her touch!


LEMON-COCONUT BARS
(from Betty Crocker’s Cookbook 2001 ~ p.144)

Ingredients...

(Crust)
1 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 c. butter or stick margarine, softened**
1/4 c. powdered sugar
******
(Filling)
1 c. granulated sugar
2 tsp. grated lemon peel, if desired
2 T. lemon juice
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
2 large eggs
1/2 c. flaked coconut
Powdered sugar

Directions...

1. Heat oven to 350-degrees Farenheit.
2. Mix flour, butter and 1/4 cup powdered sugar. Press in ungreased square pan, 8 x 8 x 2 or 9 x 9 x 2 inches, building up 1/2-inch edge.
3. Bake crust 20 minutes; remove from oven.

4. Beat remaining ingredients except powdered sugar with electric mixer on high speed about 3 minutes or until light and fluffy. Pour over hot crust.

5. Bake 25 to 30 minutes or until no indentation remains when touched lightly in the center. Cool in pan on wire rack. Dust with powdered sugar. For bars, cut into 5 rows by 5 rows.

My notes...

* I used, and always recommend using, butter.
* By all means, add the grated lemon peel. It brings the taste to a new level!
* Check the expiration date on your baking powder.
* Cut the bars at room temperature for best results. If they have been refrigerated, just leave them out on the counter for 10-15 minutes before cutting.
* Next time, I’m going to mix the coconut into the flour, butter, powdered sugar mix to make it part of the crust.

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Have you noticed? Near the upper right hand corner of the blog, there is a green box labelled Food Blogs. I’m now a member and you can access most of my blog entries/recipes by clicking on the box and searching Step By Step In The Kitchen.