Rhubarb and links

I saw the stems from the corner of my eye at the store, such a soothing, beautiful pink colour! I love rhubarb from way back in the day, it grew on the side of our house, was easy to identify and easy to cut, it was ideal for kids-turned-kitchen assistants--"Go get me some rhubarba!" Off I'd go with the smallest kitchen knife, on a mission. Last night it made me a little sad to just have to pick them up from a basket and stuff them into a plastic bag, I missed out on the cutting noise, the juiciness, comparing the leave sizes... Ah well. Such is life these days. You can grow rhubarb easily, but you have to wait 2 years before you consume it, I don't have that time.

My instinct recipe for rhubarb: rhubarb-strawberry crumble. I made this one, intrigued by the inclusion of port (I only had dry sherry). But I made two mistakes: I couldn't find/was too lazy to look for rolled oats, so I replaced it with steel cut oats. (Turns out, if you replace an ingredient with a better ingredient, you don't necessarily get something better). And: I didn't reduce the sugar. So my crumble was decent, but not spectacular, too sweet, and a tad too crunchy, even though it smelled enticing. But maybe I'm a bit blase about it, so many rhubarb-strawberry crumbles in my life...

This morning I found this recipe: orange-coriander ice-cream and rhubarb pop-tart. Now that caught my attention! I still have a couple rhubarb stems sitting in the fridge. I'll try that (especially the orange-coriander ice-cream), and report soon.

Stevia

What on earth is that stuff??! I understand it's not sugar, but what is it exactly? A brief google search wasn't helpful.

I still gave it a try. I dished out the $12 for a tiny bottle, scornful at the rip-off. Three months later though, I use it about every other day (I don't know what it is so I don't trust it fully to consume it daily), one drop at a time, using with great care the eye-drop (I made the mistake the first time to use four drops in my green tea--it was undrinkable). At this rate, it looks like the bottle is going to last until 2020. (Maybe in the meantime the internet will have figured out what it is and whether it is safe for me to consume it?). I needed something else.

This morning the rock-hard bread was making fun of me, of my incapacity to eat the whole loaf before hardening, and I pulled out Mollie Katzen's Moosewood Cookbook at page 199 for the easiest bread-pudding recipe on earth (I take out an egg from her ingredients). I decided to replace the sugar with stevia, adding two drops, then risking a third. I followed the variations suggested below the recipe, namely: a few dark chocolate chips, some chopped frozen banana, a bit of cinnamon and nutmeg. It came out very lightly sweetened, so I may start using the stevia a bit more into my baking...

The bread-pudding recipe is on page 199 of the Moosewood Cookbook. But here's what I baked:
-placed the hard bread cut into bite sizes in the ceramic baking pot
-in a bowl, quickly whipped together: 2 eggs, 2 cups of milk, 1/4 teaspoon of vanilla extract, 1/4 teaspoon of sea salt, 3 drops of stevia.
-found the chocolate chips from their hiding place, dug out the frozen bananas from the freezer. Added a handful of chocolate chips to the bread, chopped one banana thinly and filled the holes between the bread pieces.
-covered the whole thing with the custard.
-Sprinkled cinnamon and nutmeg on top.
-Oven: 350F, 35 minutes.

Rheinhessen Spätburgunder Rosé Eiswein 2004

Another of the super-bargains from 3Cups some time back, this ice wine was simply a perfect treat. Not too sweet, wonderfully grapey, crisp and refreshing, and at only 8% ABV not a clobbery dessert wine. I went back in search of another bottle (for $10!), but of course they were all gone. Oh well - nice to have had the chance at all.

Summer Dessert Cracker

From the annals of "instant ingredient-based recipes" comes the following:

1 Carr whole wheat cracker
1/4 radius peach slice, thin
1" x 1/2" slice Bulgarian feta
1/2 large raspberry, sliced

Stack, with cracker at bottom, peach, feta, then raspberry on top. Eat in no more than two bites, preferably with each element in each bite. Probably would go nicely with Prosecco.