Here’s my twist on classic Rhubarb Lunar Cake. This is a highly requested dessert at Munson Manor!
Sue’s Rhubarb Lunar Cake
Cake:
1/2 cup butter
1 cup white sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
8 large stalks of rhubarb*
2 cups all purpose flour, plus 1 tbsp
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger
1 cup kefir**
Topping:
1 cup brown sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup butter, melted
Preheat oven to 350F.
Grease a 9×13 pan.
Chop rhubarb into 1/4 inch pieces on the diagonal. Toss with 1 tbsp of flour.
Mix together flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and ginger. Add to rhubarb.
Using a stand mixer, cream butter and sugar. Beat in egg until fully integrated, then add vanilla. Alternate flour & rhubarb mixture to kefir (3:2). Pour evenly into greased pan, then prepare topping.
Melt butter, cinnamon and brown sugar and cover cake. Bake for an hour or when inserted knife comes out dry.
*the original recipe called for 2 cups of rhubarb, but when I first baked this cake I misread cups for pounds, thus the 8 stalks. If you want less rhubarb-y goodness, use a smaller amount. The recipe is very forgiving.
**substitute kefir for buttermilk. If you don’t have either, add 1 tsp of white vinegar to a cup of milk and let stand for a couple of minutes.
We like our garden pretty wild , but some things grow better when they’re more organized. I love carrots. Last year I planted seeds but the rows quickly were taken over by other plants and got lost in the jungle. I harvested one delicious but pathetic carrot. This year, I am going to give them the attention and care they need to flourish. It was a little sad to break up the verdant beds, but it’s carrots or bust!
The sacrificial bed.
We started by eyeing out a few twelve inch wide planting rows across the beds currently bursting with greens in what we call our “kitchen garden” – a handful of small garden beds and fruit trees just out our kitchen/back door (don’t underestimate the importance of of proximity in your own garden design; get a few small garden beds as close to the kitchen as possible!).
Then we cut swathes of salad greens from the beds and prepared soil for seeding. We ate a lot of salad and gave a bunch away to friends. snip, snip
Salad greens anyone?
Leftover plant refuse including roots was used to thickly mulch the peas. (In permaculture lingo, this is called “stacking functions”, i.e. a single action or intervention has multiple benefits.) With this mulch the peas will likely require no irrigation, even with the increasingly warm temperatures.
Willa & I preparing the fine seed beds to plant carrots.
Furrows were made, little tiny carrot seeds planted, and voila, a new bed of mixed greens and carrots. We can still harvest greens daily and keep a close eye on the seedlings. The regular watering that the carrot seedlings require will keep the salad greens tender at the same time.
Carrot beds interspersed with salad greens. May 21, 2017
These types of seed beds do need a little more care and attention than the wilder parts of the garden, including watering and weeding. Luckily I’m good at both those things.
Not everything is edible in the food forest. Here we have blackberries spilling over the back fence, strawberries, blueberry, flowering kale, Italian prune plum and rhubarb. Oh yes, and a beautiful lupine.
Lupines are legumes and excellent nitrogen fixers, but aren’t edible due to their alkaloids and enzyme inhibitors. They are popular with bumblebees and honeybees though!
Rhubarb is a staple in our food forest garden. It is one of the first things to poke out its nose in the spring, with crinkly beautiful green and red leaves.
Rhubarb in the food forest garden March 17, 2017Two months later, the rhubarb is huge and I have been harvesting from it for a couple of weeks now. This year, three of the biggest plants are flowering (also known as “bolting”). Most people cut back these flowers because the plant puts so much energy into growing them instead of the edible stalks. My mom confessed to me she had never seen a rhubarb flower and she’s 81! We have nine vigorous plants and we decided to let them do their thing as an experiment. (So far the only thing interested in them are the ants.)
You can grown rhubarb from seed, but it’s easiest to plant “crowns”. Better yet is to get a division from a friend or neighbour – in order to maintain health and vitality, plants need to be divided every few years – we got all of ours from Justice’s mom.
You can use rhubarb in lots of ways: eat the stalks raw, pie, preserves, cakes, stewed. When harvesting, take a sharp knife with you. Pull the stalk from the crown and twist free. Cut the poisonous leaf off and drop as mulch around the plant (in permaculture and food forest garden circles this is sometimes called the “chop and drop” method).
We try to eat and use what is in the garden in season. Argh, that sounds so pretentious! I lived in Vancouver for twenty years and never gave much thought to seasonal eating. I just bought what I wanted when I wanted. This spring, I was lucky enough to have fresh grapefruit from my parents’ place in Palm Springs. No one was eating them and I didn’t want them to go to waste so I made a delicious rhubarb-grapefruit jam, (I was inspired by these two recipes: http://www.thewednesdaychef.com/the_wednesday_chef/2008/06/chez-panisses-r.html and http://www.dinnerwithjulie.com/2013/11/04/rhubarb-grapefruit-marmalade/)
Harvest rhubarb, discarding the leaves in the garden. Wash, pat dry and cut into ½ inch slices.
Using a reamer, juice both grapefruits, reserving the pith, membrane and seeds. These contain pectin and you can put them into a cheesecloth square to go into the pot.
Slice the grapefruit peel into little strips or chop finely, whichever you prefer. Both are nice.
Put the rhubarb, chopped zest, juice and sugar in a large heavy-bottomed stainless steel pot. Let the mixture stand overnight (this allows the sugar to dissolve and the rhubarb to release its juice.)
Prepare five 250ml (8oz) canning jars and self-sealing lids in boiling water, following the manufacturer’s instructions. Put a small plate in the freezer to be used later to test the consistency of the jam. Bring the pot of fruit to a boil over high heat, stirring occasionally. The mixture will bubble high up the sides of the pot. Skim off any light-colored foam collecting on the edges. (The foam is delicious in smoothies!)
Soon the jam will subside, still bubbling thickly. Stir frequently and make sure it doesn’t stick to the bottom. If it burns even slightly it affects the colour (although not the taste). Use a candy thermometer or start testing for consistency by putting small spoonful of jam on the cold plate.
When the jam has cooked to the thickness you want, turn off the heat and carefully ladle the jam into the prepared canning jars, allowing at least 1/4 inch of headroom. Seal with the lids according to the manufacturer’s instructions. The preserves will keep for 1 year.
Rhubarb Fun Facts:
Rhubarb leaves are toxic because of their high oxalic acid levels.
Rhubarb is used as a fruit, but really it’s a vegetable.
Rhubarb was grown and traded in China as early as the 16th century.
Rhubarb plants can be harvested for up to twenty years if managed well.
Beautiful rhubarb plant May 17, 2017A young artist’s rendering May 22, 2017
