Shiny Cooking

Rhubarb with caramelized onions? Rhubarb salsa? Rhubarb and lentil potage? I can hear you now, the ornery ones of you that is: What the hell, woman…rhubarb’s for pie. Crisps. Crunches.

For April’s Foodbuzz 24, 24, 24 event, I decided to explore the savory side of rhubarb, since there’s a ton of it growing about 50 feet from my front door. As rhubarb is technically a vegetable/herb, why not try some recipes that utilize rhubarb as a vegetable?

Hey, salsa has a tangy bite. I bet rhubarb could work in salsa. So I tracked down a viable candidate in The Joy of Rhubarb: The Versatile Summer Delight. It’s a classic Mexican salsa, with fresh cilantro, green onion (which made me happy; I can’t stand regular onions raw), lime juice, jalapeño for a bit of bite, barely-blanched rhubarb, and lots of sweet peppers and more sugar than salsa normally would have, to counteract the rhubarb’s bite.

Dad’s verdict? “It would be great on hamburgers. By the way, we’re having hamburgers tonight….” Subtle hint there, Dad. Yeah, he went home with some rhubarb salsa. Linda thought it had a bit of a bitter rhubarb taste to it and suggested more sweetener. I loved it. Fresh, crisp, clean salsa taste with the rhubarb adding uniqueness without overpowering it.

Overall verdict for rhubarb salsa: Two snaps up. Read more on foodbuzz 24, 24, 24: rhubarb — it’s not just for pie anymore…

This has been sitting here for a day now, waiting for input beyond the picture above. A sinus infection flareup keeps distracting me, work keeps distracting me, worry keeps distracting me. I’ve begun looking up home remedies, which is always a bad sign, a sign that you might as well suck it up and go to the doctor. So I did; I sucked it up and I’m going to the doctor today. Wish me luck and antibiotics.

The gist of it is, this post won’t get the hyperbole it deserves. No purple prose about the wonderfulness that is this garlic butter, just some facts and then the recipe. Read more on garlic butter…

That funny looking thing that looked like a cross between a post-nuclear-holocaust carrot and an anime tentacle monster?

Horseradish. It grows in the front of my yard near the ditch, and in Mom and Dad’s in a little “patch” near the field. All I know is it grows on its own and it’s nearly impossible to kill.

Every year before Christmas, Dad digs up the horseradish roots and makes the condiment we call horseradish. Not to be confused with the plant itself. Except for the whole sharing-a-name thing.

It starts out like this, a pile of gnarled, muddy roots.

Dad puts them on the low screened table I use to cure onions.

Then, hook up the power washer! Read more on how to make horseradish, plus a horseradish giveaway…

I’ve been fortunate in that I’ve never had to learn how to make strawberry freezer jam. I’ve been even more fortunate in that I never even tasted store-bought jam until I was practically an adult.

As a result, I’m spoiled. Spoiled rotten. I turn up my nose at Smucker’s, and even those fancy top-shelf brand jams can’t satisfy.

I never had to learn how to make strawberry freezer jam because every year I saw my mom make it right in front of me. Sis and I got drafted to help pick strawberries in our grandparents’ strawberry patch. I recall crouching low, pushing through the leaves, and searching for the elusive strawberries Grandma insisted were still there even though we were sure we’d gotten them all. Read more on strawberry freezer jam-boree…

Just a quick line here to share the joy that is Not Pouring Salt From a Goddamn Spout. This might be old news to a lot of you, but it’s brand spanking new to me. I have no idea why I never thought of it before.

It began when I bought a carton of salt with a bum spout. Read more on why didn’t i ever think of this before?…