It’s asparagus season, it’s baseball season, it’s school music program season, it’s kitten season.

All of these pale, though, compared to the One Season to Rule Them All.

Pie season.

Fruit pies are the pinnacle of the home baker’s art — sweet and tart, ensconced in a flaky crust. I’d go so far as to say they’ve always been an indicator of a farm cook’s prowess.

When I was just a wee browncoat I read the entire series of “Little House” books. Tacked onto the end of the boxed set is a slim volume called The First Four Years. The First Four Years covers the time just after Laura and Almonzo were married, and they set out to build their own household. It’s an unusual volume in the series in that it doesn’t bear the editorial stamp of Laura’s daughter, Rose, who edited and polished up the rest of the series to give it a smooth narrative and familiar themes.

The First Four Years is rougher and darker than the rest of the series as a result. Almonzo develops what sounds like a viral joint condition similar to rheumatoid arthritis which makes it difficult for him to work with his hands, weather disasters constantly eradicate their crops and efforts to get ahead, and Mr. and Mrs. Boast come off as pathetically creepy when they make Laura a modest proposal to adopt her new baby, their reasoning being that the Boasts themselves cannot have any but Laura and Almonzo could always have more.

we’re getting to the point

There were happy and amusing spots in the narrative, though. One which stood out to me as a child was near the beginning of the book, when Laura and Almonzo moved into the house he’d built for them. She marveled at the kitchen’s modern conveniences, like the pull-out bins for flour and other dry staples. I flashed back in recognition to my house’s kitchen, which had been remodeled when I was six or so. Before then, however, the cupboards had a couple of those same bins along the bottom, which, for the uninitiated among you, open in somewhat similar fashion to an expanding file folder.

laura’s rhubarb pie

The other humorous moment I remember from the book was the first time Laura made a pie in her new home. Almonzo brought home the threshing crew for lunch, and Laura had been wracked with nerves, sixteen years old, hoping everything she’d cooked would turn out satisfactory.

The crew was impressed by the food, relieving Laura. She put the rhubarb pie out. One man took a bite, paused, and reached for the sugar bowl. Lifting the top crust and generously spooning sugar on the rhubarb filling, he joked that the best kind of pie was one where you could control how much sugar was in it. Yeah, she’d forgotten to add the sugar.

with rhubarb pie, try not to forget the sugar

There’s a reason rhubarb is known as pie plant. Familiar to people in the past, rhubarb was rarely used in cooking before sugar became commonly available, because it’s so incredibly astringent. I kind of proved this in my savory rhubarb experiment, in which I found out it was very difficult to make rhubarb tasty without sugar.

The beauty of fruit pie is that balance between sweet and tart. Try not to freak at the 1-⅓ cups of sugar in this rhubarb pie recipe. The rhubarb needs it, and you’ll still have that distinctive rhubarb tang.

Rhubarb’s the first pie fruit of the season. Try to get a pie made with it before the rhubarb’s gone. You won’t be sorry.

rhubarb pie

I haven’t done a pie crust tutorial yet, and for that I apologize. If making your own crust, please, please just use the recipe on the Crisco can. Note that the shortening was reformulated several years ago to make it virtually trans-fat free (the label says 0 grams). You’ll be disappointed with butter. Use shortening, use ice cold water, add just enough water til the dough comes together cohesively, and don’t play with the dough too much, and you’ll have a flaky crust. Trust me.

oven: 450°F (then 350°F)
prep: 15 minutes (assuming pie crust is already made)
total time: 1 hour 15 minutes

pastry for a 9-inch double crust pie
4 cups chopped rhubarb
1-⅓ cups granulated sugar
6 tablespoons unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon butter

Preheat oven to 450°F. Roll out bottom crust and place in 9-inch pie plate. Trim edge of pastry.

In a medium bowl, combine sugar and flour. Sprinkle ½ cup of the sugar-flour mixture on the bottom pastry crust in the pie plate.

Dump the chopped rhubarb on top of it.

Sprinkle the remaining sugar-flour mixture evenly on top of the rhubarb.

Cut the butter into 6-10 smaller bits and dot the rhubarb with them.

Roll out top crust and cover the pie. Trim, seal edges, and crimp. With a sharp knife, make a few slashes in the top crust to allow steam to escape.

Place pie in 450°F oven on bottom rack. Bake for 15 minutes, then lower the oven temperature to 350°F and bake another 45 minutes, or until top crust is very slightly golden and fruit is bubbling.

Remove pie from oven and let cool on a rack for an hour or more. If you cut into a warm pie, it goes all over the place! If you can resist long enough to let it cool completely, you won’t have watery juices pouring out from the slice you just cut.

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.

Jump to the rhubarb salsa recipe now or continue reading.

balsamic-rhubarb reduction

I swear, this was some fancy-pants shit I made. Asparagus with balsamic-rhubarb reduction (recipe here). It was dead easy, too. You cook down some balsamic vinegar and chopped rhubarb — along with a good little heap of sugar — until most of the liquid has evaporated and you get a thickish sauce. In this preparation, it’s served with roasted asparagus. You could really impress some guests with this stuff.

Dad’s verdict: Tasty, but the roasted asparagus was too soft. He grabbed a stalk of raw asparagus from the 10-pound bag I’d just picked and dipped that in the reduction instead. Linda’s verdict: “Too strong for asparagus. Would be really good with pork or something.” I liked the contrast between the tangy, balsamic-flavored reduction and the mild roasted asparagus, but I see her point. Comme-ci, comme ça.

Overall verdict for rhubarb-balsamic reduction: Two snaps sideways.

lentil and rhubarb potage

The original title of this Mark Bittman recipe is “Lentil and rhubarb stew with Indian spices,” but it’s too thick for a stew. So I did some Google-fu and discovered it was more of a potage, which also sounds fancier.

And man, it may be one ugly mofo of a dish, but damn, lentil and rhubarb potage is tasty. I was shocked. It had no added sugar. I was certain it would be inedible. But I had to try it, because it has cardamom in it, which is my new favorite spice ever.

Linda’s verdict: Really good and interesting. Nice balance of complex flavors. I’m transling from “Mmm” here, by the way.

Overall verdict for rhubarb and lentil potage: Two snaps up.

caramelized onion and rhubarb compote on herbed yogurt cheese

Hey Aunt Geri, I finally broke in the yogurt cheese maker! And all was good. This recipe, heavily adapted from one for caramelized onion, beet, and rhubarb compote, made me nervous. For one, it was another fancy-pants recipe. For another, I was adapting the living hell out of it. I’m not good at that sort of thing. Usually my adaptations tend to turn out more like the rhubarb mistake below. And for yet another thing, I was winging the whole herbed yogurt cheese thing. Entirely.

If you want to adapt the recipe like I did, simply make it without the beet purée, and add more maple syrup when you add the rhubarb, about 2 tablespoons worth. Trust me, you’ll need it. For the herbed cheese the easy way, go with a slightly sweet prepared cheese spread like Aloutte…because that was what I was shooting for. I put them in baked wonton cups, but they’d be better on small squares of puff pastry.

Dad’s verdict: “I really like the cheese and compote filling, but those wontons are like chewing on glass.” Linda’s verdict: “I love that filling!” Me? Shocked. And happy it worked. :p Cue the Smiths.

Overall verdict for caramelized onion and rhubarb compote: Two snaps way up.

rhubarb mistake

Since I had Mexican, Indian, and vaguely Italian (in the form of the caramelized onion and rhubarb compote), I decided to try incorporating rhubarb into a Thai curry. I’m not even going to link to the recipe I worked from, because the experiment was an utter disaster, and I didn’t follow the recipe exactly, so I don’t want to impugn the blogger who posted it.

Suffice it to say: disaster. Coconut milk wasn’t enough sweetness to balance rhubarb’s astringency, the rhubarb became gloopy, and it tasted awful. Oh well.

The experience did cement my dedication to you, the reader: You will never be subjected to a recipe I don’t absolutely love. I want everything you try to be something well-tested and well-liked before it ever hits this page.

Overall verdict for rhubarb mistake: Two snaps way down. Let’s forget all about it and move on to the rhubarb salsa recipe.

rhubarb salsa

Adapted from The Joy of Rhubarb: The Versatile Summer Delight by Theresa Millang.

2 cups finely diced fresh rhubarb
½ cup sweet red pepper, chopped
½ cup sweet yellow pepper, chopped
½ cup fresh cilantro, chopped
3 green onions, tops only, chopped
1 jalapeño pepper, finely chopped
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
2 tablespoons brown sugar, or to taste
salt and ground black pepper to taste

Blanch rhubarb in a saucepan of boiling water for 10 seconds. Seriously. Ten seconds. No more. Remove rhubarb promptly from heat, dump into a strainer, and rinse under cold water until rhubarb is lukewarm or cool. This is to stop the blanching process.

Place rhubarb in a glass bowl.  Add remaining ingredients, and mix well. Refrigerate at least an hour before serving to allow flavors to develop.