Rhubarb is such an easy thing to grow here in the Northwest. It pops up early in the year and ours produces through September providing several months of tart vegetables used mainly in desserts. My beautiful wife thoughtfully gave me the book Rustic Fruit Desserts: Crumbles, Buckles, Cobblers, Pandowdies, and More for Christmas. The book goes through by season and covers a great variety of good desserts by season. In the Spring section, I have made their Rhubarb Cream Cheese Pie with Fresh Strawberries and their Rhubarb, Oat, and Pecan Crumble and both have turned out excellent.
Well, Tracy, the boys, and our new baby girl left for Montana for a week, and our rhubarb was so massive that it was starting to crowd out other plants.
Rather than make and eat a dessert by myself, I decided that it would be good to preserve some of the rhubarb for a winter crisp or pie. You harvest rhubarb by grabbing the stalk below the leaf, then pulling with a slight twist to pull the entire stalk out. Pulling out the entire stock helps the next set of leaves pop right out so that you can get a steady supply. Before bringing the rhubarb into the house, I cut off the leaves from the stalk. The leaves can be or are toxic, so those go into the compost bin.
I found some great Rhubarb information, including the directions for freezing Rhubarb, on this site: Rhubarb Central I decided to freeze the rhubarb plain with no sugar added.
First, I cut the ends off the rhubarb.
Then wash the rhubarb to remove dirt, dust, etc.
I dried the rhubarb on a towel for 20 minutes.
I put the diced rhubarb in ziplock freezer bags an removed as much air as possible. A vacuum sealer would be nice, but spending money is not nice.
After that, I wrapped the Rhubarb in freezer paper to prevent any freezer burn. That should keep them nice until we are ready for some late season crisp!
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