Amazing....around here the rhubarb is winding down in the summer heat. Enjoy!

Glad it was harvested before the epic heatwave the PNW is experiencing now. We've also been enjoying juicy cherries from Washington, as well.

Hooray, I'm glad you found some! So, how's the shoulder doing? Ready for more?

Annie

Sitting here with ice on my shoulder the pain is overwhelming. But I am diligently following my exercise regimen. Pain meds and Colace lol. Not sure I'm up to a shipment of rabarber (love the Dutch word for it).

Ugh, I was afraid the pain meds were going to mess with your digestive system, they always do mine. (sigh) I'm sorry.

It can wait, it won't be hot here the next couple of weeks and I'll just keep yanking off the seed heads, it'll be ready when you are, no hurry at all.

I had a German exchange student who shuddered at the thought of "rhabarber", she said they ate it as a vegetable! No wonder she shuddered, she tried pie and loved it. Of course, she also loved grilled cheese sandwiches, her mother told her she'd be fat by the time she went home, LOL.

Annie

I've still never had rhubarb and am not sure what to do with it. I've seen it a couple of times, but for me it is very exotic and unfamiliar. I do not personally know anyone who has cooked it that I can think of, and of course no one has ever served it to me. I've also never seen it in restaurants.

It's a combination made in heaven with proper custard.

Also, very good with pork and ginger.

Islay - my grandmother made a rhubarb custard pie and that's my favorite.

Another accolade for rhubarb custard pie. I haven't had it for years. I'm planning a visit to a farmers market next week and now I want to look for it.

I love rhubarb pie. We used to get rhubarb here about once a year, but my mom always made pie or stewed rhubarb. Now I see it more like once every three or four years.

Do you mean British-style custard (like a sauce) rather than baked custard, Islay?

My rhubarb custard pie calls for mixing sugar with the rhubarb and letting ti stand to draw out the moisture....then you add beaten egg yolk and flour....and when the pie is baked, top with a meringue from the whites of the eggs.
It's really not "custard" in that it has no milk....but it comes out with custardy stuff around the rhubarb.

That's really interesting, lindac. I've seen pies like that but without the meringue, but I don't think I've ever had any.

I fell in love with rhubarb at Knots Berry Farm Fried Chicken Restaurant where they served stewed rhubarb in small side dishes. It was so delicious! They served it like one would serve individual dishes of applesauce.

Growing up, I only had rhubarb stewed or in my grandmother's wonder Rhubarb Mulberry jam...the only jam I ever liked better than blackberry. Mom made a rhubarb upside down cake once that was good but, for some reason, she never made it again.

Since moving to the frozen tundra where nearly every yard has a token rhubarb plant, I've learned to use it a few other ways. Rhubarb is excellent in an apple pie or apple crisp and I love (Lindac's) rhubarb cake recipe. I made a rhubarb-peach crisp a few weeks ago and it was excellent. Rhubarb is great for combining with other kinda' lack-luster fruit because it really helps to amp up the flavor.

I did make a rhubarb custard pie (milk based) culled from the web but wasn't overwhelmed with it. Need a different, Tried & True recipe before I give up on it, though.

I love rhubarb! Rhubarb cakes or muffins, rhubarb bread pudding, jam, sauce, pie, raw dipped in sugar, and my favourite, rhubarb crisp with ginger and pistachio. We see a lot of strawberry rhubarb pies, but I think that is just a waste of rhubarb. When I was growing up we had a couple large plants that produced so much that we couldn't give it all away. After having to buy it at farmers markets for a few years, I've now got my own plants again. It's such an easy plant to grow!

Yes, Writer'sblock, the real stuff with egg yolks and milk and no cornflour! The French make a horrid custard that's all thin and runny and call it creme anglaise. Grrr!

Oooh! I'm trying not to waft off in storms of giggles! I'm so used to French food snobbery. Why would they put cornstarch in crème Anglaise? I've mostly made it as an ice cream base, but it thickens by itself as you stir. Watching it come together is most of the fun!

Obviously you don't know about BlancMange

Plllog, I have no idea especially when they do the creme patissiere etc so well. They obviously think that, because it's English, it's bad lol . Blancmanger can be very good like a panna cotta.

Thanks, Islay! I must admit that most of my British friends used to be big on just using Bird's.

For the sake of time, I use Birds for my trifle now.

Hate Birds custard lol Ambrosia make one that comes in a carton that's not too bad. Good with rhubarb.

Birds must be awfully popular, though, Islay. Our local Publix even carries it in their Homesick Brit section.

My rhubarb "custard" pie uses sour cream with an egg and flour to create the custardy goo around the rhubarb. Heavenly.

It IS popular but it has a nasty chemical smell. I think it's the bad vanilla they use. When you taste real custard you can't compare but I suspect there are millions of people who have never eaten the real thing. My mum never made custard.

I don't understand the blancmange reference (something I associate more with the "white" meals of a couple hundred years ago, though it has been a popular desert recently). Blancmange doesn't have eggs and is thickened with gelatin or carrageenan, so it's not a custard thing. Linda are you using it with rhubarb? I would have thought the flavor of rhubard would be too strong.

My one rhubarb plant has not gone dormant yet. It's still putting out leaves. Is it too late to harvest any? It did have a flowering stalk some time back and I thought that is the threshold for harvesting... or is it???

Linnea, I just pull off the flower stalk before it blooms, until about this time of year, I was always told to cut it off and discard it until the end of summer. I'll cut one last batch of rhubarb stalks, then stop for the year.

It depends on where you are, I'll still have about a month or a month and a half for it to grow before fall frosts, and it's cold tolerant, so it'll have plenty of time to bounce back. I'm in zone 5a and won't get a frost until the end of September, hopefully.

Annie

Thanks!

This is the third plant I've tried, so I have yet to learn what works (and doesn't kill the plant). The previous 2 died after a year or 2. They also had gone dormant before this.

I'm zone 5b. Frost in early to mid October.

Linnea, are you letting your plants get established before harvesting? You need to wait at least a year after planting to harvest and quit harvesting when the stalks start getting small.

And you need to water!! If your rhubarb is going dormant in august it needs water!

I have some rhubarb plants in the back of a border next to woods. As Linda says, they die down from lack of water. When we get a good soaking rain, they spring back to life.

OTOH, I killed my first rhubarb plant by planting it in heavy clay soil below the drip edge of a roof and it rotted from too much rain.