It’s That Time of Year Again – Celebrating with Rhubarb

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Anna, baking, cake, Cologne, community garden, garden, Germany, home, Kuchen, New York, recipe, rhubarb, strawberries, vegetarian

Rhubarb is in season again, yay! I love rhubarb, in pies and in cakes, usually paired with strawberries but it’s also great on its own as a bitter accompaniment to anything sweet. This week marks the two year anniversary of my blog and when I started blogging on the 16th of April 2010 this tart treat is one of the first things that I posted about, with a recipe for rhubarb crisp.

I left my garden where I used to live, in upstate New York, behind that year to come to Germany with my husband Thomas and our then 6 month old daughter Anna to spend some time where my husband comes from and learn how to grow a garden on foreign soil. Two years later I am still trying to figure out how to manage a decent garden here in Germany, how to work the soil, battle off the deer, rabbits, moles and slugs that pervade and how to find the time to tend to a garden at all while taking care of an active 2 1/2 year old! It’s been a challenging 2 years, but we have been lucky enough to have a balcony garden each year with lettuces, herbs, carrots and strawberries, we were part of an organic community garden in the Cologne area two summers back and last year we found a plot of land down the street, not far from where we are staying, and were given permission by the land manager to start a garden of our own there! I am looking forward to starting up our garden there again this spring and I hope that this year will bring more insight into what grows well on our newly found little piece of land far far away from the place that I call home.

Strawberry-Rhubarb “Kuchen”

For the Crust

• 1 cup Flour
• 1/2 cup Almond Meal*
• 3/4 cup Sugar
• 2 Tbs + 1 tsp Corn Starch
• 2 1/4 tsp Baking Powder
• 1 packet of Vanilla Sugar or (1 tsp vanilla extract)
• 1/2 tsp Salt
• 1 stick (113 grams) cold Butter cut into small pieces

*To make almond meal grind almond pieces or slivers in a coffee grinder or food mill.

Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl with a whisk. Then add the butter (and vanilla extract) and cut into the flour mixture with a pastry cutter or two knives until the mixture is crumbly and the butter is pea sized or smaller. Press the crumble into the bottom of a greased square or 6×10 inch rectangular pan.

For the Filling

• 3 stalks Rhubarb cut into 1 inch pieces
• 1 pound or 500 grams Strawberries cut into bite sized pieces
• 1 1/4 cups Sour Cream
• 1 Free Range Egg
• 1/4 cup Sugar *plus extra for sprinkling (optional)
• 1 tsp Cinnamon

Lay the rhubarb on top of the crumb bottom and press in gently then layer the strawberries on top of the rhubarb. Mix the other ingredients together in a bowl and pour the sour cream mixture evenly over top of the fruit.

Alternately:

Pour the sour cream mixture over the crumb bottom and then layer the rhubarb and strawberries on top. Sprinkle the top of the fruit lightly with sugar.

*I have made this recipe both ways and I prefer the first method with the sour cream mixture on top of the fruit better but both come out very good. Also, I would recommend using a square or rectangular baking dish or cake pan which worked out much better than a round pie plate for me.

Bake in a preheated oven at 350° Fahrenheit for 1 hour. Allow to cool slightly before serving. Guten Appetit!

My Grandfather’s 90th Birthday!

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birthday, garden, grandfather, home, New York

My "Papa" with a few of his Great-Grandchildren

I haven’t posted in a while because I haven’t been at my computer for the past three and a half weeks. Thomas, Anna and I made a sudden and surprise trip home last month to visit my family and have only just returned to Germany. I wanted to be home for a special occasion last month, you see on March 18th, 2012 my grandfather or “Papa” as my siblings and I fondly refer to him, turned 90 years old. He would tell you that this is a lot of nonsense though, that he has now completed his 90th year and has just begun his 91st. That is my grandfather for you, sharp witted, smart, funny and a wealth of factual information from reading lots of books and staying fit both mentally and physically. He is more active than a lot of people I know who are half his age and he has always stressed the importance to me of healthy eating and living. Every year I make a garden with my grandfather in his back yard; he lives in the house next door to where I grew up in upstate NY and he tends to the garden for me while I am away. My grandfather not only keeps the garden in good shape but also mows his lawn, rakes it and makes a compost pile from the clippings, leaves and food scraps for the garden. He trims the apple trees in his back yard, picks asparagus which grows in secret places all over his property in the spring, harvests elderberries and currants from his bushes in late summer and apples in the fall. He has shown me by example how to live close to the land and eat well from it. Being a diabetic my grandfather can’t eat too many sweet things but he does have a sweet tooth and always enjoys it when I make him a sugarless apple pie or strawberry shortcake, which just might be his favorite. When I cook for my grandfather I try to do so without sugar or only sometimes with a sugar substitute like Stevia (which is his preferred sweetener). My Grandfather takes vitamins every day and will swear to you by them, he loves to drink green tea, has been using coconut oil and flax seed oil in his food long before they became trendy and he always has a positive outlook on life and on eating. Thanks Papa for being a positive roll model in my life, for always being there for me and all the rest of your children/grandchildren/and now great-grandchildren and I hope that you thoroughly enjoyed the start of your tenth decade with your family and friends gathered together with you to celebrate!