A Tale of Two Rhubarbs

As you can see from the picture at the top of this post, the inhabitants of our rhubarb patch are just starting to poke their heads through the surface. To coddle them through the cold days of this winter, we mulched them generously with some of the spent compost from last year's tomato grow bags and hanging baskets. Can't wait for them to be ready for picking.

Mind you, the good thing about this time of year is that you get a delicious sneak preview of what's to come - a delicacy which brightens up this rather grey month. It looks like the forced rhubarb is now well in season, courtesy of our veg box (and more) people at Northern Harvest. I blogged a bit about this wonderful treat last year, when we had a ready supply of forced rhubarb courtesy of the much-missed apple stall on Cambridge's Sunday market. It was not too long ago when we finally finished up the shocking bright pink rhubarb vodka that I mentioned a year ago. Now we're working our way gradually through the two large bottles of vodka flavoured with non-forced rhubarb from our patch - one of which had some ginger added, both of which are fabulous with a nice ginger ale or beer. Back to forced rhubarb, it really is a welcome splash of colour in dull old February and it's probably the first real fruit treat of the year (if you don't count all those great English apples that continue through the winter).

It's even easier to get through the cold, dank days and the long evenings when you can enjoy a delicious crumble made with fresh forced rhubarb. We've got a good recipe that we'll add to this blog post when Ali at Craft Matters can get onto it. Crumble is one of our favourite puddings, when you can get that crucial balance of crunch and chew in the topping: in our recipe the texture is helped along with oats and sunflower seeds. It's great with custard, or even some double or clotted cream, if you're feeling in need of a real treat.