Roasted rhubarb

A week or so back, Dad gave me some rhubarb stalks from the new garden and I finally got round to cooking them last night.

I had thought about making a traditional rhubarb and custard tart or a crumble but it was a hot day and reflecting on the thought of me bikini-clad in a fortnight’s time, I decided to roast it and pair with some low-fat crème fraiche!

Roasting is a great way to cook rhubarb as it doesn’t reduce down to that unappetising green pulp synonymous with the vegetable (yes, apparently it’s a vegetable!) and it keeps its vibrant colour. Being greedy when Dad offered it up I chose the fattest stalks I could find but I have learnt since that the finer stems are less eye-wincing and generally sweeter.

I chopped the rhubarb into 2 inch pieces in a bowl, grated half an orange zest ontop and doused the pieces with the juice of a whole orange. I added three heaped table spoons of Demerara sugar a generous swiz of vanilla extract and a few pinches of cinnamon and poured the mix evenly into a baking tin. Then left in the fan oven at full whack for 20 minutes.

The results were pretty and smelled good. The caramelised zest tasted like the banana tarte tatin I posted on here a while back. I served with crème fraiche but I think Greek yoghurt or custard would work equally well. My four stalks made about four portions worth so I stirred some into my pukkola breakfast this morning.

Fregola sarda

I finally tracked down a pack of fregola sarda- the Sardinian pasta that looks like couscous which I was raving on about in an earlier post! I didn't have to venture far as they were selling it cheaply at £1.50 a bag at a Borough saucisson stand- about time too!

I oven roasted some cerise orange tomatoes and red onion with garlic and chopped basil and threw it all together with the cooked fregola, asparagus and a bit of parmesan for a light dinner at the weekend.

The fregola is a bit deceptive as it swells up like big lentils once you’ve boiled it up so is a little hard to judge serving size. It’s semolina-based and tasted a bit like the hard dried spaghetti when it was not quite cooked. It took a good 12 mins to cook through, next time I’ll be adding some oil as some of the grains stuck to the bottom of the pan.

Now I’m on the scout out for some exciting recipes to try out with the remainder of the bag. This one from the Chocolate and Zucchini blog looks like a possible contender:

http://chocolateandzucchini.com/archives/2009/10/fregola_sarda_with_zucchini_and_parmesan.php

Banana tarte tatin

This dessert was a personal triumph so felt the need to post evidence on here. I've never made tarte tatin as pastry scares me a bit but this was one of the easiest puddings I've made.

It's one of Jamie's creations (again, sorry!)- melt 60g butter and 150g caster sugar to form a caramel, pour into a baking tin, press four sliced bananas face down in the caramel, sprinkle with cinnamon and zest of half an orange (nearly didn't add this because I'm not keen on bits of zest/candied fruit etc.) and top with a sheet of puff pastry (250g).

Cook in an oven at 180 degrees for half an hour- actually took me nearer 45 minutes- despite the fan oven- to get the pastry nice and brown. Flip out onto a plate. Serve with vanilla ice-cream/creme fraiche and some flakes of dessicated coconut. Done! Sooo good- the zest added a whole new dimension and there were no bits, they melted into the smooth caramel- absolute dreams!