Try Rhubarb - In Season Now and Super Yummy 
5 | Posted on May 10, 2010 ‹ newer older ›
The best place to find healthy eating inspiration is your local produce source. And if you pay attention, you will see that there are vegetables and fruits that arrive at different times of year.
For example, a pound of strawberries cost me $1.60 yesterday at my local supermarket. (No, they were not organic.) Even more rare than strawberries is rhubarb, which is waiting for you RIGHT NOW.
This vegetable is super yummy (yes, it is a vegetable). Picture it as a sour and red celery stalk. An entire pound of rhubarb has a whopping 95 calories. Isn't that amazing? Unfortunately, to make it palatable, you need to add sugar.
The best way to eat it is as a "jam" like substance. With this jam, you can add it to ice cream, yogurt, spread it on toast, or just eat it straight. The taste is very strong so that might be challenging.
The recipe below uses the oven to make rhubarb compote. It is easier to use the oven because you don't have to watch over it. My favorite way to cook is to chop and toss things in the oven and come back when they are done.
Have you ever used orange or lemon zest? The "zest" is the colorful part of the peel, which has a strong flavor and lacks the bitterness of the white part (the pith).
I have included a link to a "zester" so that you can see what one looks like. I don't own one. I use a vegetable peeler to take a layer of peel off and then a mince up the zest. The orange zest makes a great flavoring agent for the rhubarb.
Finally, I have included a link to a juicer. It makes adding lemon or orange juice SO easy to different recipes. My favorite way to use it is to add juice to my salad dressings. The more flavorful the salad, the more likely I am to eat it.
Rhubarb Compote
(2 cups)
1 pound rhubarb
1 medium orange
1/2 cup sugar
Preheat oven to 350 F. Rinse rhubarb, trim ends and remove any leaves. Slice each stalk in half lengthwise, then cute each half crosswise into 1-inch pieces. Place rhubarb into a bowl. Peel one tablespoon orange zest off of orange, mince, and add to bowl. Juice 1/2 orange and add to bowl (save the other half for something else or eat it now). Add sugar to bowl, mix, and add mixture to 8-by-8 inch glass baking dish (or something similar). Cover the dish with foil and bake for 35 minutes. Remove foil and bake for another 20 minutes so the juices thicken. Remove from oven and cool before serving. This can be served cold, room temperature, or slightly warm.
1/2 cup = 142 calories, 0.3 g fat, 35.6 g carbohydrates, 1.4 g protein, 3.1 g fiber, 5 mg sodium, 3 PointsPlus
OXO Good Grips Lemon Zester
$7.99
Progressive International Citrus Juicer
$4.39 $11.20
How do you cook rhubarb?
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5 Comments:
There are so many great rhubarb recipes being shared right now - saw a post for a rhubarb coffee cake but the comment I loved was "cubed rhubarb can be frozen and enjoyed all year long"
Chris Weithman on May 10, 2010
YES! You can freeze it for other "sad" times of year when it isn't available. Also, you can save time by just chopping a whole bunch and freezing for when you need it. Lisa
Snack-Girl on May 10, 2010
Strawberry Rhubarb pie is to DIE for!!!!!!
Alice on May 10, 2010
Thanks for the great info and suggestion - I had no idea that an entire pound of rhubarb only had 95 calories. We will definitely have to give it a try!
Also we love our zester and use at least a couple times a month. It's a great small tool that is pretty inexpensive too.
We use our zester when making recipes such as roasted tomatoes (mix orange zest with garlic mixture on top of the tomato). It adds a great citrus flavor to many recipes.
Thanks again for the great tip on rhubarb.
bodyhacker
bodyhacker on May 10, 2010
Bless you yet again :-) I just cooked up a pound of rhubarb (about 6 stalks) with probably more like a 1/4 cup of sugar and wondered what the points+ would be. Thanks, to you, now I know. I will try your recipe with the orange next time. But I do cook it in a pot on the stove top, not in the oven, with just a little water,lemon juice and as little sugar as possible. Lovely over ice cream or yogurt, especially in the winter months when less fresh fruit is available. I couldn't find rhubarb when I lived in San Diego, but now that I'm back in PA, I look forward to it each summer! Don't need more than 1/4 cup to top yogurt, so doesn't add much in points :-)
JaneG on June 17, 2011
