I decided to celebrate early summer rhubarb last weekend with a 3 course rhubarb extravaganza! This rhubarb is what we had on sale at the Co-op. It's from Oregon, and it has the most beautiful dark red color. The rhubarb that's grown around here seems to be really pale - probably because it doesn't get cold enough in the winter.
Designing three courses that all feature rhubarb was a bit of a challenge, but I think I managed to make it work.....
The first course was a savory rhubarb cheese cake. I combined two recipes from
Epicurious, one for a sweet
Stilton cheesecake with rhubarb compote, and one for a savory
Marscarpone cheesecake. This is the crust - it's crushed crackers and butter. I don't think I did it quite right - it was pretty crumbly...
Here's the rhubarb for the cheesecake. I cooked it in port, a little
sucanat, and lots of black pepper.
Here's the
Stilton cheese that I used.
Mmmmm.... fancy blue cheeses like this one are one of my favorite foods. This is from England - apparently in order to be called Stilton it has to be from one of three counties:
Leicestershire,
Nottinghamshire or
Derbyshire. I blended it in the food processor with cream cheese, eggs, a little flour, and lots of fresh thyme. I've got so much thyme right now on the front porch, I can't seem to use enough of it!
This is the cheesecake before baking. I put a layer of the cheese mixture down, then the rhubarb, and another layer of cheese on top. Then it went in the oven for an hour....
This is the rhubarb sliced for the main dish. I loosely followed a recipe I found at the LA Times website:
Crisp duck breast with rhubarb-ginger confit.
I tossed it with a little
sucanat, fresh ginger, black pepper, and soy sauce. Retrospectively, I wish I would have skipped the soy sauce - the flavor didn't seem to blend well. I spread the rhubarb in one layer on a baking dish and put it in the oven with the cheesecake.
Now it was time to start the dessert :
rhubarb ice cream!
Here's the unfrozen ice cream: Cream, milk, eggs,
sucanat, vanilla, stewed rhubarb (with sugar,) raspberries, and strawberries. Unfortunately, we don't have an ice cream maker, so I just had to freeze it like this and stir it often while it was freezing. Not the best way to make ice cream, but it was bound to taste good!
And here's the finished cheesecake. Beautiful! I put it in the fridge to cool.
This is the duck breast ready to be cooked. It's seasoned with salt and pepper and a little
Pickapeppa sauce, which is basically a Jamaican barbecue sauce. I cooked the duck over medium high heat in the cast iron skillet.
And it was time to eat!
Here's the cheesecake ready to be cut. I sprinkled some thyme flowers on top for garnish.
It was really good! The only problem was the crust not staying together.... I don't think I used the right kind of crackers, plus I didn't crumble them as well as I could have.
Here's the main course. The rhubarb complemented the duck perfectly. My only regret was adding soy sauce to the rhubarb....other than that, it was perfect!
And the ice cream. It took a long time to freeze! It was really good, but didn't last overnight. By the next day it was pretty freezer burnt and hard. I'd really like to get an ice cream maker - although then I guess I'd probably eat too much of it...
So that was the rhubarb meal. It
definitely wasn't perfect, but it all tasted really good, and I sure learned a lot about rhubarb!
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The apple tree is already forming little apples - How quickly it goes from flower to fruit!
Things have been growing so fast! We had a few days of freak hot weather a couple weeks ago, and it really jump-started my garden. (Here on the coast it almost never gets over 80 degrees, and we had a few 85 and even 90 degree days.) It's been pretty normal since then - cool and foggy. The picture above is the front garden about a week ago. The Rhododendron and Azalea were in full bloom. The heat-wave made their flowers rot quickly - they're all turning brown now. It's funny - the Azalea blends in with the foggy sky in this picture - both were totally white.
Mustard Greens and Lettuce. The lettuce especially is growing really well. We've been eating salad from the garden for a few weeks now.
The potatoes are just awesome! I expect to be eating them in a month tops. They haven't bloomed yet, but I bet they will soon....
This is a garlic head that speared a falling azalea flower. The garlic will probably be done before too long as well.
The back garden doesn't get as much sun as the front, so it's pretty much impossible to grow veggies.....this lavender sure is pretty though.....
I've forgotten the name of this columbine. It's kind of under-stated, but beautiful none the less.
The Japanese Painted Fern is so happy in its spot! It's one of the most beautiful plants we have!
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