Rhubarb Pie and the most neglected plant in the garden
Springtime brings with it hardy rhubarb plants, childhood summer memories, and some unusual entries in my recipe box, where rhubarb is the star.
The neglected corner of the garden where this year's pie began.
It’s rhubarb season!
Rhubarb brings back so many memories from my childhood. My neighbour Joanne had a good-sized backyard garden with 2 large rhubarb plants that she let go wild after her first pick. As a 6- or 7-year-old, that suggested a perfect invitation to raid the garden!
We had a playhouse in our backyard. It looked like a little cottage, with 2 front windows with window boxes, an open door, and benches and a small table inside. It was about the size of a garden shed but it was a truly solid little wooden structure, and I remember the day it was delivered.
It must have originally belonged to someone my Dad worked with, but I’m not quite certain of its origins. It arrived on a flatbed truck. I don’t remember what process got it off the truck (it may have had a tip-out), but I do remember the slow process of bringing it from the street around to the backyard by rolling it over logs. Move 3 feet, reposition the logs it had rolled off, move 3 more feet and repeat until it was situated around the back of the house, in front of the hedge separating our property from Joanne’s. I loved that little house!
There was a hole in the bottom of the hedge in the back corner of our yard that conveniently opened into Joanne’s garden, hidden from my mother’s view behind 2 huge snowball plants. My friend Laurie was my partner in crime. She was always much more confident than I was! I would bring a small bowl of sugar into the playhouse, then together we would crawl through the hedge and steal luscious red stems of rhubarb.
After a quick wash under the garden hose, we would dip them into sugar, and eat right from the stalk, wincing from the sour taste while denying they were sour. The giant leaves became fans that we played with, I suspect not realizing they would be poisonous to eat! I have no recollection of what we did with the leaves afterwards because surely someone would have caught us if we left them somewhere obvious! I can say with certainty we never raided Joanne’s garden for anything but the rhubarb, which we rationalized was plentiful and neglected after Joanne picked the first spring shoots.
The rhubarb filling, baked and ready for its meringue topping.
When my own children were small, I found a new recipe for rhubarb pie. We didn’t have a rhubarb plant ourselves, but family friends had 2 plants at the back of their property. They had no interest in it - I think they had even tried various methods to kill them, but the well-established plants refused to die, always coming back the following summer. I happily cut the stalks and brought them home. Some was cut and frozen, some was made into pies. Not the typical strawberry-rhubarb pies, but a rhubarb meringue.
Today I have a rhubarb growing in a neglected corner of my yard. I noticed yesterday it is surrounded with weeds and quack grass, but the stalks are ready for picking. With rain coming this weekend to keep me indoors, I think rhubarb pie may be on the menu!
Rhubarb meringue pie, fresh from the oven — not your typical strawberry-rhubarb.
Rhubarb Meringue Pie
Make in the afternoon for supper that night. It says refrigerate leftovers, but let’s be honest. Leftovers?
INGREDIENTS
3 Tbsp butter
3 cups diced fresh rhubarb
2 cups sugar
3 Tbsp cornstarch
134 tsp salt
½ cup light cream
2 egg yolks, beaten
1 pastry shell, baked
FOR THE MERINGUE
3 egg whites
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
¼ tsp cream of tartar
6 tbsp sugar
SUPPLIES
saucepan, mixing bowl
electric hand or stand mixer
pie plate
METHOD
Preheat oven to 350.
In the saucepan, melt butter. Add rhubarb and 1 ½ cups sugar; cook over medium heat until rhubarb is tender (about 10 minutes). Already this smells good!
Combine cornstarch. salt, cream and remaining sugar in the mixing bowl and beat well. Mix in egg yolks. Add a small amount of the hot rhubarb mixture and mix well. Add this to the saucepan with the rhubarb mixture and bring to a boil. Cook and stir for 2 minutes. Pour into pastry shell.
Make meringue by beating egg whiles until foamy; add vanilla and cream of tartar; add sugar gradually, beating until stiff peaks form. Immediately spread over the pie filling, sealing to the edge of the pastry.
Bake for 12-15 minutes or until the meringue is a golden brown.
Cool completely. Store leftovers in the refrigerator.
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Sue:
Sue tends a kitchen garden in Alberta, growing as much of the family's food as the season allows. She writes about what comes out of the soil and what ends up on the table — honest, unfussy, and rooted in Canada.