more rhubarb tales

long-time readers will no doubt be familiar with my love of the tart, tangy vegetable that wants to be a fruit known as rhubarb.  i’ve blogged about it many times before.

last week, mr. happy stuff brought home a gift of rhubarb from a church friend.  it sat on the counter for a few days while i tried to decide what to turn it into.  i still have several jars of canned rhubarb compote from last year’s canning, so i didn’t feel a strong need to make more sauce, but i was feeling too lazy to make a pie (plus, then i tend to eat it all myself since mr. h-s isn’t as fond of it as i am–and i probably shouldn’t eat so much butter) so i hunted around the web for some rhubarb inspiration.  in the end, i chose to make three different things.  the first was a rhubarb crisp from my own recipe file.

and before you ask, yes there was butter in this recipe, but look–it’s just two tiny ramekins of crisp!  (and they were delicious!)

and the second recipe started very similarly to compote:

cook the rhubarb down with sugar and water (and a little corn syrup), then put it in the food processor and blend until smooth.  then, let it cool completely in the refrigerator for a few hours and then crank it into ….

a beautiful rhubarb sorbet!  i sort of used the recipe in the link, but i cut the quantities in half so that it would fit into a pint ice-cream container i had, plus i left out the ginger and the orange (sacrilege!  why muddy the pure flavor of the rhubarb?) and i didn’t strain the pulp out after blending it (why get rid of the good stuff?  it was blended so smoothly that you can’t even tell).  if i were to make this recipe again, i think i’d cut back on the sugar–too sweet, not enough tart and i’ll definitely keep my eye out for redder (or more purely green) stalks to get a more intense color.  but it was really pretty easy and definitely worth repeating!

the third recipe was for rhubarb soda which is wonderfully delicious, but again has a bit too much sugar for my taste.  i think maybe this was a mild batch of rhubarb.  maybe i’ll add some lime and make a virgin ruby june.