Rhubarb recipes springing up again

This really delicious recipe for apple rhubarb pie came along early last summer after we featured some rhubarb dessert here. But my rhubarb was already getting stringy and I didn’t want to use any more of it. So I thought, ‘I’ll hold onto this,’ because, you see, I never throw away any of the recipes you send me and sure enough, didn’t it come in handy this week?! My rhubarb is coming up strongly and looking very fine.

Now, one of the things I do for fun is concoct dishes using the first of something with the last of something from our garden and stored food supply. For example, I like to make a potato salad with the last two or three potatoes from last year’s garden with the new potatoes from this year’s crop (even if it means the older potatoes are all wrinkled and not what you call prime.) Or a salad with the last bit of last year’s stored cabbage with the first salad greens of this year. (By now, I bet you are thinking that I ought to get a life.) Well, I think it is fun, and this pie fit right into the pattern because to make it, I used the remainder of last fall’s apples with the first picking of this year’s rhubarb!

Most of us can get apples year round at the store, but rhubarb still tends to be a somewhat seasonal fruit even in commercial chain stores. The apples I used, though, were from an old biennial apple tree. They are very good flavored and keep beautifully. A few collapsed over the winter in a brown and mucky heap, but the rest stayed quite firm and very sweet.

I had thought I would try this recipe over the winter using frozen rhubarb. Unfortunately, I waited too long to select stalks for freezing and they were too tough.

One stab at a rhubarb crisp and I heaved the rest of them out. Too bad. Freezing rhubarb is actually quite simple. All I do is cut them in inch-long pieces and spread them in a single layer in large cake pan, put them in the freezer. When they have frozen through, I knock them off into a zip-up plastic bag, squeezing as much air out as possible. Back into the freezer they go.

I didn’t fiddle around with Alberta’s recipe too much. I did use half light brown sugar and half white sugar. And Alberta’s original recipe specifies making neat layers of apples and rhubarb, but being the kind of cook I am I threw everything into a large bowl and tossed it. You can be neat and orderly about it or not – you’ll get a nice pie out of it either way.

Apple Rhubarb Pie

Pastry sufficient for two 9-inch crusts

1 cup of sugar

3 tablespoons flour

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

3 cups of rhubarb cut up

2 cups of apples sliced

Line a 9-inch pie plate with pastry. Mix the flour, sugar, and cinnamon together. Sprinkle enough of the mixture on the pie crust to cover. Add a layer of rhubarb, sprinkle with some of the sugar and flour mixture. Repeat. Lay the apples on the rhubarb and sprinkle on the rest of the sugar and flour mixture. Top with pastry, crimp the edges, and cut a few slashes through the top. Bake at 425 degrees for 25 minutes, reduce the temperature to 375 degrees and bake for an additional ten minutes. Insert a sharp knife in a vent hole to check that the apples are soft.

Looking for… Jane Jennings in Brunswick has her hands full cooking for folks in assisted living homes. She had a good idea for cooking pork the way we did that veal scaloppini a couple weeks ago. Eventually, I’ll share that with all of you, but meanwhile, she asks, “What do you know about spelt?” I thought, “Uh, oh, not much.” What I have heard is that people who cannot eat wheat often can eat spelt, and that it is good in bread and other baked goods. Does anyone have a good spelt bread recipe?