Rhubarb is one of those ingredients that people either adore or avoid. I fall into the former, and use it as much as possible during its rather short growing season. I’ve made it into crisps, pies and even eaten it raw, dipped in sugar (which is admittedly hard core). Combining the mouth-puckering sour flavor of rhubarb with sweet, creamy, honey ice cream base may just be the perfect marriage. I think this may have the power to turn even the most ardent rhubarb haters, into its biggest fans.
This is a strawberry-rhubarb crisp I created for my Cooking Channel Weekend Baking post. There is really nothing better than the combo of sweet berries and tart rhubarb. If you are one who has never tasted rhubarb, or tried and decided it is not your thing, I beg you to try it again. Maybe you won’t want to grab a stalk out of the garden and plunge it, raw, into a jar of sugar. That is a more advanced move. The trick is to start gradually, combine it with lots of strawberries and a sweet crunchy crisp. This is not cheating, the rhubarb is still playing an essential role in the flavor of your crisp. It is adding a tart dimension to a potentially overly sweet dessert; like adding lemon zest to balance sweetness, but it is even more interesting. Pretty soon you will have a rhubarb plant growing in your yard and long for the first stalks to poke out from the spring snow and then dread the last days, when the heat of summer has made the plant too tough to eat. That is why I make this plea now, when rhubarb is at its best!
The gift of spring every year in my garden is the rhubarb. I didn’t plant it, I don’t care for it, but every spring it pops up and provides me with such a thrill. As soon as the stalks are thick enough to hold the weight of their leaves I start to pluck them out of the ground. I really should wait, but those first tender stalks are the best of the year and I can’t resist. They usually just get dipped in sugar and eaten as is.
It is officially spring when I walk outside my door and there are stalks of rhubarb standing tall in my garden. To date, rhubarb and strawberries are the only edible things I’ve managed to grow. Every year the rabbits and squirrels wait until the strawberries are perfectly formed and just about to turn red, then they systematically eat them all. So, in the end, all I am left with is my huge patch of rhubarb. It may be why I love it so much, because I feel a sense of accomplishment.
