Homemade Rhubarb Juice ~ Recipe

We are still swimming in rhubarb around here as our plants just keep giving and giving :) So I thought that I would share again with you my favorite way to make a rhubarb juice which is such a wonderful summertime treat :)

The kids and I filled an entire laundry basket heaping to the top with fresh rhubarb stalks to bring into the house for stewing and of course once it is cut it's best to use it up right away so I got busy washing them up and trimming off any dirty spots.

This is so super easy to make and even if you only have a little bit of rhubarb you probably have enough to make at least one special batch :)

Cut up 6 cups of fresh rhubarb stalks into 1 - 2 inch pieces and place in a heavy bottomed sauce pot. Add 8 cups of water, 2 1/2 cups of sugar and 2 or 3 nice thick slices of lemon and bring to a boil. Once boiling reduce the heat, cover and simmer for about 15 minutes when the rhubarb has completely gone mushy.

Let the syrup cool and then strain it through a fine mesh sieve into a jar. You will have a gorgeous pink liquid and you can eat the boiled rhubarb to! The stewed rhubarb is so sweet and tasty that the children love to eat it warm straight from the sieve :) Usually there isn't a stitch of mushy rhubarb left when we're done but since I made so much this year I shared it with the dog and the cow *grin*.

I got some great new jars this spring to that I couldn't wait to use and this seemed to be the perfect time. They have rubber stoppers that you clamp down tightly and we've filled them quite a few times with rhubarb syrup to take along camping with us or for a picnic by the pond.

The rest of the juice I canned in my mason canning jars and some of it I froze as well. If you want to can the rhubarb juice all you need to do is wash up some of your larger canning jars and pour the boiling hot juice straight from the pot after you've strained it into your jars and then screw on your lids with your canning seals heated up just like if you were making jam :) So far I have about a dozen quart jars to last us through the winter and 7 wine bottles full in the freezer. It's going to be so much fun to be able to pull them out in the dead of winter and enjoy a little bit of spring :)

To finish off your yummy rhubarb juice you can mix 1 part syrup with two parts water or for a fizzy spritzer you can use a sparkling water like Pellagrino instead plain water for a real treat. Personally that's my favorite way to drink it and it is so refreshing on a hot day.

Have fun making some of your own!

Hugs,
Rosina


PS. Looking for more yummy recipes?? Check out this week's Hearth and Soul blog hop :)

Mouthwatering Rhubarb Pie ~ Recipe

Rhubarb season is in full swing and there is no shortage of it around here! We've been eating it in muffins, cakes and now pie :) The tartness of the rhubarb mixed with a good dose of sugar makes for a mouth watering combination. If you're not crazy about a sweet pie then a warm slice of rhubarb pie might change your mind. The tart bite of the rhubarb counteracts the sweet and melds together perfectly.

Pull out your food processor and start feeding in fresh stalks from your rhubarb plant. The amount of sliced rhubarb you need will depend on the size of your pie plate so pull out an empty pie plate and start filling it with your sliced rhubarb until you have a really heaping dish full. It will shrink as it cooks so more is better than not enough!

I have quite a deep pie plate so I used about 10 cups of sliced rhubarb while my mom can only squeeze about 8 cups into hers so using your pie plate will give you the perfect amount :)

Once you have all of your rhubarb sliced and measured out put it into a large bowl and add:

1 1/2 cups sugar
6 heaping Tbsp. minute tapioca
1 tsp. nutmeg
1 egg lightly beaten

and mix all of it thoroughly together. If you are worried that it's to much sugar, don't. You could cut it back a bit but I wouldn't take away to much. You need that sweet to keep you from puckering up to much when you take that first bite *grin*.

I know that lots of people use flour as a thickener in their pies to help all of those juices set but I really like to use tapioca because you don't have to worry about getting any lumps. It's just that easy!

Now that you have your rhubarb all mixed up, pour it into your pie plate that is lined with an unbaked pastry shell for the bottom of your pie.

Tuck a few dabs of unsalted butter on top of your rhubarb filling and cover with another sheet of your pastry. Pinch, roll, or tuck the ends of your pastry tightly together to help seal in all of that rhubarb goodness and to finish it off you can sprinkle a little bit of sugar over the top of your pastry. I also like to take a sharp knife and cut in a few slits across the center of my pastry to let steam escape as it cooks.

Place in a pre-heated oven at 400 degrees fahrenheit for the first 15 minutes and then turn your oven down to 350 degrees fahrenheit after that and continue cooking for another hour.

Mmm, mmm!

You will know your pie is good and ready to come out of the oven when your pastry has browned up, you can hear it bubbling and some of the juices are starting to escape :)

It's always a good idea to put a sheet of foil or parchment paper underneath your pie as it cooks because more often than not there will be a little bit of delicious sweetness that escapes and drips out of your pie. This makes clean up a cinch!

If you can keep yourself from cutting into your rhubarb pie while it's hot it will set up beautifully and the pieces will come out nice and solid. Of course we couldn't help but dip into our pie while it was still hot so we made a bit of a mess of ours but it was so worth it *grin*.

Enjoy!
Rosina

PS. Looking for more yummy recipes?? Check out this week's Hearth and Soul blog hop

Maple Snow Candy ~ Recipe

Every winter I make a special batch of Maple Snow Candy for the kids. A delicious little treat of candied maple syrup that nobody can resist *grin*. Last year though we had not one flake of snow so there was double the excitement when I appeared outdoors this afternoon with a steaming pot of pure sweetness and a handful of popsicle sticks :)

Everyone crowded around as I found a clean snow drift and started to pour caramel colored ribbons of the steaming maple syrup directly onto the snow :) The syrup sinks ever so slightly into the surface of the snow and remains nice and soft and stretchy so that you can roll it up like a lollipop on the end of a popsicle stick to suck on.

Mmm, so good and you have got to try making some to!

You will need

1 cup of 100% Pure Maple Syrup

1/4 cup of unsalted butter

a candy thermometer

Make sure that you use pure maple syrup and real butter or it won't turn out properly :) Place all three things into a saucepan and place over medium heat, making sure that you stir constantly. This is very important as you don't want to accidentally burn the maple syrup. Keep boiling and stirring until your thermometer reaches a temperature of 220 degrees Fahrenheit. Remove the pot from the heat and let it sit for a minute or two and then find a nice clean patch of snow and pour :)

Don't worry if you don't have snow. You can do this with a bowl of vanilla ice cream to and pretend that it is snow :)

Enjoy,
Rosina

PS. Looking for more crafty ideas or inspiration? Pop over to Natural Suburbia's Creative Friday and see what others are up to :)

right now, I AM

....failing miserably at fighting off temptation!!

Today I made mass amounts of icing for the children to decorate their sugar cookies with :) Oh what fun we had with sticky fingers, red and green m&m's and sprinkles. At one point my 4 year old was nearly naked as he had so much icing stuck to his shirt that we had to remove it LOL.

But now I have been left alone with an unguarded stash of the sweet little cookies and I'm having an awful hard time not taking a nibble every time I pass through the kitchen!

I am SO weak *grin*.

Hugs,

Rosina

Click the frog to learn more!

Sweet Temptation

Hmmm, what did I do with my day today you ask?
I think I spent most of it growing wider! *grin*

I seriously need to stop reading all blogs that post recipes. Of course I'm drawn to all the wonderfully healthy fruit & veggie type recipes out there but nothing screams MAKE ME like something loaded with calories. Yeah... I'm a total sucker for the sweets!

My new blog friend Annie from Sensible Living has some totally kick butt recipes and for breakfast we tried her baked french toast recipe that is topped with a praline crumble. Oh my word, delicious!!

As if one sweet treat wasn't enough I also made her raspberry chocolate torte and mmm was it good :) Being austrian we make a lot of tortes and I must say this is a darn good torte *grin*. The only thing I wish I would have had was fresh raspberries *sob* I had to use frozen ones from last summer because this years crop isn't quite ready yet. Oh well, that just means I've got to try it at least one more time! LOL.

Hey now it wasn't all sugar today, I had a salad to!!
We had more of that delicious french lettuce and it really is more tender than the regular butterhead variety. The woman that gave it to us also gave my mom some seeds so we can grow some of our own now to :)

So normally I might ask if you have baked something sweet lately but I'm going to stop right now and save myself from more temptation *grin*.

~ Rosina

Flickr Favorites ~ Macaroon Madness

1. Big Bite, 2. yummm, 3. French Macaroons, 4. Laduree macaroons, 5. Colorful Macaroons.., 6. Sweet Stack, 7. French Macaroons, 8. macaroons, 9. Untitled, 10. Lemon flavoured macarons stack, 11. Rose Lychee Macarons, 12. Macarons, 13. Pistachio and Rose Macaroons14. Not available15. Not available16. Not available

Oh my! Delectable little sweets in all the colors of the rainbow. Must learn how to make these!!

I've been baking up a storm lately *grin*. Seems that all we can think about around here is what sweet treat can mama make today! LOL. I had been swearing off cookies & cakes like the plague because they're so terribly bad for me. Like the old saying goes... a minute on the lips, a lifetime on the hips! But these, these are irresistible.

Who knows how to make them? Pretty please share your recipe with me *grin*.

Want to join in the fun? Visit Artmind to join in :)

~ Rosina