From your garden to your table: The versatile rhubarb (Video)

Nutritionally low in calories, 1 cup contains 26 calories, rhubarb appears to look like red celery. It has large green leaves and was originally considered to be a vegetable. In 1947 in New York City, a court decided that since it was used as a fruit, it was to be counted as a fruit for the purposes of regulations and duties. Whether rhubarb is a vegetable or a fruit, the stem is usually cooked and used in various recipes, such as muffins, rhubarb liqueur, rhubarb compote, and rhubarb ice cream. You can grow this perennial for a long lived harvest.

Sunset Magazine discusses how to plant, cook, and care for rhubarb, and here is what they said.

Planting:

• Start bare root plants in winter or early spring in full sun.
• Plant in part sun in the hottest regions.
• Rhubarb can grow 3 feet tall and 6 feet wide, so give it room to spread out.
• Rhubarb does best where the winters are cold.

The versatile rhubarb plant

Photo credit: 

www.sunvalleymag.com

Care:

• Water regularly and let it grow for two full years.
• Harvest in the third year.
• Always fertilize and water after you harvest.
• In the colder areas, it will die back in the winter.

Harvest:

• Pull stalks off young plants for four to five weeks in the spring.
• Older plants can take eight weeks of harvesting.
• Grasp stems near the base and pull sideways and out.
• Don't cut them with a knife because that will leave a stub that decays.
• Never remove all the stalks so the plant can keep growing.
• Cut out any blossoms that appear.
• Remember that rhubarb leaves are poisonous, so discard them and eat only the stalks.

Three rhubarb recipes:

Rhubarb liqueur

Ingredients;

• 1 cup of sugar
• 1 cup of water
• 4 quarts of chopped rhubarb
• 3 cups of vodka
• 1/4 cup of Grand Marnier

Method;

1. This is to make the simple syrup. In a medium saucepan, combine sugar and water. Bring to a boil, stirring, until sugar has dissolved. Allow to cool.
2. Mix 2 tablespoons of the simple syrup together with the chopped rhubarb, vodka, and Grand Marnier.
3. Let sit until color is bright pink, about 3 weeks.
4. Strain the mixture and your rhubarb liqueur is ready.

Rhubarb compote

Ingredients;

• 3 cups of chopped rhubarb
• 1 and 1/2 cups of sugar

Method;

1. Simmer the rhubarb and the sugar until the rhubarb is tender, about 10 minutes.
2. The rhubarb compote is ready to serve.

Rhubarb ice cream

Ingredients;

• 1 gallon of vanilla ice cream.
• Rhubarb compote from above recipe.

Method;

1. Soften vanilla ice cream.
2. Mix the ice cream with the cooled compote.
3. Refreeze until firm.
4. The rhubarb ice cream is ready to serve.