Monday

Minnesota Rhubarb Dessert

Rhubarb.  

Growing up in Southern California I never heard of such a thing.  

My mid-western mother surely had, but I'm guessing there wasn't an over abundance of rhubarb in the produce isle in our suburb of Los Angeles. 

Either that or she was just holding out on what was to become one of my all time favorite desserts.

Enter my not yet mother-in-law who forced a bit of dessert on what she must of thought was a malnourished big city Valley Girl, soon to be her daughter in law.

I ate it to be polite. 

There is also a poisonous kind of rhubarb, so I don't advocate going out to the field and harvesting stuff that looks just like this photograph.  I won't be responsible if you croak from this recipe.

But if you have a sweet old aunt somewhere who happens to have a huge rhubarb plant that she regularly uses in baking, ask her if you can cut some.  You just slice it off at the base of the stalks or pull it out.

Some people will eat a fresh stalk of the tart rhubarb right off the plant. 

I call those people nuts. A human cannot have decent taste buds and eat that stuff!

Clean it all up first, then slice and dice......

.....till you have five generous cups, or if you are like me somewhere over 5 to 7 cups.

If you have extra, you can just plop it in a plastic bag and put it in the freezer till you are wanting some rhubarb in the middle of winter.

Make the crust from the recipe. 

Or again, if you are like me, make a little extra crust because you are using an over sized 9x13 pan with extra rhubarb.


Right about now my regular readers are thinking, what the heck, Bliss actually cooked and lived to blog about it?

I cook every day.  That's how I keep my girlish figure.  Ummmm, riiight.  And I think I'm a darn good cook if I do say so myself.

But I don't like the steps involved to post food tutorials, and doing this one reminded me of that.

I will never ever be a food blogger, but from time to time I have to share my favorites - because I don't want to be accused of holding out on you like my mother did to me.

This recipe is from one of those church cookbooks my mother-in-law gave to me, but she has been making the same rhubarb dessert recipe for I'd say about 50 years, maybe longer.

These days she has altered it a bit for herself to make it more low fat with less sugar.  She says it tastes the same.

I'm still making it full on, and my thighs can attest to that.

It's called a torte, and who am I to argue, but I don't know that it would be considered an actual torte. 

But I really don't care what it's named, because I'd eat it if someone called it "Sour Rhubarb Turned Sweet Dessert".

To me at this point the name is meaningless.


It bakes up into a yummy custardy like thing with a meringue top.


It is best served fully cooled - warm is kinda funky - and it's good the next day out of the fridge.

In fact it's so good that if you leave it on the stove to cool, by morning you and your family are so into enjoying it, that you don't even realize you forgot to take a picture of if cut on a plate, till the pan is licked clean.

And that little bit of Bliss Ranch trivia is what separates me from food bloggers.

The golden rule of food bloggers - "you always photograph before you indulge" - does not apply to me because I am not a food blogger. 

I just go right for the silver...... ware that is - fork to mouth.



*This post is reprinted from last year.  
So far I have not scavenged any rhubarb this spring.



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10 comments :

  1. Those church cookbooks are the best! I've only made rhubarb crisp and sauce. This looks so different and delicious! They sell rhubarb at my local produce store but I used to pick the wild stuff when I was a kid.

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  2. Some of my favorite and mostly used cookbooks are old church cookbooks. This sounds really good.

    Thanks for sharing.

    Judy

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  3. I have 6 or 7 church cookbooks, 2 of which came from my grandmother :) Love them. I've never made anything with rhubarb...I might need to try it out.

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  4. My grandmother had rhubarb growing in her backyard on the banks of the Niagara River, and we spent every summer with her. One of those summers, my brother had the bright idea to eat it raw and ended up pulling it up by the roots. My grandmother never forgave him for that. I *heart* rhubarb. Just finished a rhubarb and strawberry cobbler with the final strawberries of the season!

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  5. I have never made rhubarb quite like this but I am sure going to try it now. That looks delicious and we LOVE rhubarb here. The LEAVES of rhubarb are really toxic though. Now I am craving rhubarb again---back to the "steal-it-and-run" patch for me. xo Diana

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  6. I have never tried rhubarb before but I've seen a lot of recipes posted that use it. It looks like it's used in a lot of desserts.

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  7. I've never been a big rhubarb fan (Minnesota heresy, I know) but this recipe looks really good...pinning!

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  8. I've never tried this. I must admit I'm the same way. I have many meals photographed to post but I don't want to do the step by step directions either. I've never played by the rules so why start now.

    Besides I'm Italian and many of my recipes are not measured. Baking ones are and nothing else

    Cindy

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  9. Every time you post a rhubarb recipe I swear I'm going to make it - just so I can see for myself. And then another rhubarb season passes...

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  10. Make some, I've never tried it!

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