Food, knives and board are ready for tonight’s “Cook From The Box” class. Am super curious what we will create, we got rhubarb in the box this week and I’m hoping we make my 10-minute stove-top rhubarb pie, the recipe is on my food blog, click here to see it.
Produce in the box this week: (in the plastic bag on the left in the image above, and below)
- Rhubarb
- Red butter lettuce
- Oyster mushrooms
- Turnips
- Italian parsley
- Red spring onions
- Scotch kale
- Collard greens
- Artichokes
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“This is taking soup to the next level,” says Kris, one of the class participants. mmmmmgood — see above. We dry sauteed the spring onions and celery. Then mixed in thinly sliced kale and collards, added the parsley leaves and let it cook for a couple of minutes, stirring often. Then we added water to cover, let cook for 10 minutes, then blended all of it in a Blendtec, a high-speed blender. A regular blender ought to do just fine, yet the high-speed blender will give you a much better, higher quality, experience in creaminess.
In another sauce pan we simmered the oyster mushrooms in coconut oil and fresh thyme. Then blended it (see image of the mushroom mixture, below, just after the soup photo). In hind-sight, I suggest not blending the mushrooms, the larger size would have given great texture and character to the soup. As it was, the mushrooms were small bits, like that of what you find in a Cream of Mushroom soup can. These small pieces were okay, yet definitely would be better if blended really well — to a pate, or as I suggested — using the whole mushroom.
We topped the soup with the mushroom mixture and sliced green onions, see image below.
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We did it! We made a 10-minute stove top Rhubarb Pie with apple sauce, sliced pear, butter and vanilla granola. Yum. The oatmeal, granola and butter simulate a pie crust very very well.
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Amazing last-minute dish — raw rhubarb, raw onion tops (the green stalk), yogurt and pomegranate syrup. Mix well, then taste. Yum.
Then add cinnamon, mix well, taste. Better yum.
Then add cardamom, mix well, taste. Amazing yum.
Sooooo….. we were talking about ways to use the rhubarb and some of the pie fell into the bowl of sliced green stalk of the spring onions(toppings for the green soup), Anne retreived it and along came a bit of green onion. “I’m so glad I didn’t see it (green onion) clinging onto my bit of dessert, otherwise I would not eaten it. I would never have thought –in a million years– to mix the two.” She liked it!
Brainstorming ensued and each of our ideas went into one bowl. Someone called out yogurt, another called out cardamom, then cinnamon. We all agreed that this rhubarb, green onion, pomegranate syrup, yogurt, cinnamon and cardamom mixture (chutney) will go really well with Lamb.
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Okay, just one more – check this out- I came up with one more dish when cleaning up. My housemate was home and cooked up some bacon. The aroma filled the room and I just couldn’t help myself, I HAD to try it:
Rhubarb with bacon is heavenly!
You gotta try this: sliced raw rhubarb, sliced raw green onion, diced crispy bacon, yogurt (Kefir cheese is what I used) and pomegranate syrup. Ho ho ho! What a gift of flavors.