Rhubarb: 9 delicious recipes (CSA Share Ninja Rescue 2014)

Enjoy rhubarb in everything from a sweet dessert to a savory entree -- here are nine delicious, seaonsal recipes for this early summer favorite. Time to go beyond that ubiquitous strawberry-rhubarb pie!

Yippee! This is the first installment of the 2014 edition of the CSA Share Ninja Rescue, a weekly summertime feature in which you tell me via blog comments on Fridays what veg you received (or will be receiving) in your CSA share box or found at the farmers' market that you don't know what to do with and I'll give you a whole bunch of recipe ideas on the following Tuesday.

This week, my lucky readers are up to their eyeballs in rhubarb -- lucky lucky LUCKY!

If you want to go beyond the ubiquitous strawberry-rhubarb pie, check out these nine unique recipes, not only from The Ninj but also from some of my most favorite bloggers. 

Flourless chocolate cake with strawberry-rhubarb jam

 
I need you to make me a promise. Right now.

You must promise me that you will make this cake as soon as possible. It is imperative that you promise me this because, if you don't, your life will not be complete.

(Yes, the cake is that good.)

Mr. Ninj described it as "better than restaurant-quality"; I'm calling it my new go-to dessert.

But wait -- there's more: it is ridiculously easy to make.

How easy? Well, can you boil water and use a spoon? Then you are imminently qualified to make this cake.

I'm participating once again in the From Scratch Club's virtual book club; currently, we are cooking from Sherri Brooks Vinton's Put 'Em Up! Fruit. Every two weeks, the group is assigned a different seasonal fruit or group of fruits to preserve (put 'em up) and then incorporate into a recipe (use 'em up). And we share our results with the rest of the group (and I, with you).

Our first fruit group was strawberries and rhubarb, the classic early-summer duo. I decided to cheat a little bit and use my roasted strawberry-rhubarb jam, since Sherri's book included recipes both for strawberry-rhubarb jam as well for roasted rhubarb (which was very similar) -- and I had already made a bunch of jars of my jam.

Lucky for you, one of Sherri's suggested recipes for using the jam was this flourless chocolate cake (topped with the jam). Frankly, I tried this recipe because I was pressed for time and happened to have all the ingredients in my pantry, but it turned out to be an excellent choice.

What a cake! 

Roasted strawberry-rhubarb jam

There's a ton of rhubarb in my garden.

Last year, I was fortunate enough to inherit part of divided rhubarb patch that one of my neighbors was giving away. Given that I had only gotten turned on to rhubarb the year before, I wasn't quite sure what I was going to do with the harvest.

After today, I will never again worry about that because I have discovered roasted rhubarb jam.

And now I wish I had more, more, MORE rhubarb in my garden, perhaps an entire garden of just rhubarb, simply so I could make jar after jar of this jam. It is that good.

Oh, and did I mention absurdly easy? Set-it-and-forget-it easy? No pectin or lemon juice easy?

Yep, that easy.

Strawberry-rhubarb chutney: a recipe

Strawberry-rhubarb chutney, not compote

I've been calling this recipe a compote all week but then had a second thought.

It could be a chutney.

(I honestly didn't know what makes them different.)

Hello, Google.

Here it is: chutney is made of cooked fruit and vegetables (not just fruit) and contains vinegar. A compote, on the other hand, is simply fruit cooked in sugar syrup.

So this strawberry-rhubarb bad boy is in fact a chutney.

I stand corrected. And so does the title of my post now.

This strawberry-rhubarb CHUTNEY is very easy to prepare and so perfectly seasonal right now. I served it with some roasted chicken breasts (it cooks while they do): absolutely the perfect accompaniment. I'm sure it would also be fabulous with pork tenderloin.

Strawberry-rhubarb drop scones: a recipe

Strawberry-rhubarb drop scones

Strawberries and rhubarb: what's the history behind this winning combination?

Well, apparently, like a bajillion other things Americana, we have good old Ben Franklin to thank for rhubarb; he is credited with bringing the first seeds to America in the late 1700s.

As for the strawberry part, I couldn't really find any definitive answer, other than the first strawberries emerge just as the last of the rhubarb wanes, so, based on plenty and seasonality, both became popular pie fillings.

Regardless, it is in fact a great combination.

Regular readers will remember (probably with horror) that I don't really like pie (it's a crust thing), so I had to get my strawberry-rhubarb fix another way.

Scones, baby.

I love scones; they are so much richer and substantial than cake or muffins. And they sound so classy, don't they? Very British-high-tea and all, but they are quite easy to make. Normally, once the ingredients are combined, you pat out the dough into a thick round and cut the scones into wedges with a knife or use a biscuit cutter to make round shapes.

CSA Share Ninja Rescue: rhubarb and broccoli rabe

Rhubarb, in my garden right now

This year, I'm really enjoying the differences in requests for CSA Share Ninja Rescue help that are coming in based on a reader's geographic location. For example, this week we'll be tackling not only rhubarb, which is in season (albeit a short one) in the northeast, but also  broccoli rabe, which is plentiful for a reader in Colorado but generally more of a fall offering here in Vermont.

So keep those requests coming, no matter where you live.

As always, if you need help with a veggie, leave a comment below or send me an email before this coming Friday. Recipes suggestions are posted on Mondays.

On to this week's recipes...

Rhubarb

My sister calls it "that stuff that looks like red celery" in the store. Yep, that's it. If you buy it from a store, farm stand or farmers market, you will get stalks only; if you pick your own, be sure to remove the leaves as they are extremely toxic.

Rhubarb oatmeal: a recipe

Too much shadow, but you get the idea

You are probably going to stop taking me seriously as a ninja when I admit this: I have never tried rhubarb before this weekend.

Seriously? Seriously.

I have mentioned before that I did not grow up in a very food-adventurous family so you can well imagine that rhubarb wouldn't have crossed our threshold very often. Hell, ever, as far as I remember.

And, for some reason, no one I have known has ever made a killah strawberry-rhubarb pie that gets forced on you ever year or anything like that.

So, like the fiddleheads, I decided to give rhubarb a try.

I had no idea what I had been missing.