The FastDay Forum

[carorees]

Our veg patch is not super productive except in the case of rhubarb and gooseberries. My rhubarb and gooseberry recipe repertoire is somewhat limited though: it contains perhaps four recipes: rhubarb crumble, stewed rhubarb (that's rhubarb crumble without the crumble ), gooseberry jam (which may be used to fill a cake so maybe that's another recipe ) and cake with gooseberries dropped in the mixture.

Anyone got some ideas for more uses?

Can you put the two together in a crumble/pie/jam? What about some sort of reduce sauce from the gooseberries (are they sweet?) to go on top of pork/chicken/etc? actually rhubarb would go with pork too. i think. ice cream? chutney? fruit salad? fruit salsa? oatmeal/granola/muesli? a compote for waffles/pancakes?

can you eat either plain/baked?

[janeg]

Rhubarb fool! Yummy, ,and you can use rhubarb as a 'filler' with other fruit as it takes on their taste. Not sure if that's helpful though.

BBC Good Food http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/ have some good recipes for seasonal fruit and veg. In their magazine this month they've got a gooseberry Eton mess and some other gooseberry and rhubarb recipes.

If you like oily fish like mackerel stew your rhubarb to make quite a thick compote consistency and sweeten to taste either with sugar or stevia and have it with your fish. It's also delish with pork - had some yesterday with pork loin with crackling! I sometimes add a bit of lemon juice to it when I eat it with fish. As for the gooseberries it just has to be gooseberry fool (just not on a fast day!)

Gooseberry cordial or Rhubarb wine

Stewed rhubarb makes a compote my kids adore on top of ice cream. I use Nigella's recipe from Nigella Express.

For a picnic we had this weekend I made some nice tarts with rhubarb and strawberries - I got the recipe from Southern Living magazine online:

http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/strawbe ... 000112174/

There was also a recipe in the Times today for pork chops and a rhubarb sauce which I could have used yesterday as I was making pork chops for dinner and had some rhubarb in the fridge...

I'm pretty sure one of my Jamie Oliver Naked Chef books has a good recipe for roast pork and rhubarb too.

Nigella Lawson generally has a thing for rhubarb so if you have any of her books you can get some good ideas - I'm sure there must be a trifle using rhubarb in at least one (she's got a thing for trifle too, but who wouldn't???).

If you add some ginger to the rhubarb compote it is lovely with Asian style trout, seabass and salmon. I made rhubarb and ginger jam a couple of years ago and it was a great hit with everyone. You can also do the gooseberries like the rhubarb, make it slightly on the tart side and have it with fish, pork etc.

Gooseberry Pie is delicious and can use up quite a good amount of them.

i LOVE rhubarb and ginger jam! super yummy with a good hard cheese. or a soft one.

Hi carro

Wish I had loads of rhubarb can taste it stewed now (on fast day how cruel) well at least I left off the crumble, I am changing. Only other thing I've done is as advised rhubarb wine very nice. Sue

Hi,

I had the exact same happen to me at the weekend, I looked for recipes for jam, but all had WAY too much sugar in my opinion, so I made this and it tasted delicious:

180g gooseberries
180g rhubarb
juice of half a lemon
4 tablespoons of sugar

-heat the fruit in no more than a splash of water to stop it from catching on the pan, when it's turned into a soft much, add the lemon juice and sugar spoon by spoon to taste.

Much healthier (and yummier) than the almost 400g of sugar that most recipes recommend!

x

[carorees]

Thanks for all the suggestions! I hadn't thought to deal with the glut by combining the two...so I will now!

Oh no! I didn't get picked. I'm not teacher's pet Where's the rhubarb and ginger jam...and the ice cream!!

[carorees]

I wasn't excluding using the two things separately, just commenting on the fact that I hadn't considered using them together! I do think rhubarb and ginger jam would be good but the fact that we have about 10 jars of gooseberry jam to use up from last year plus blackberry, blackcurrant and cherry jams means that jam is not a priority at this time!!! Ice cream? Who said ice cream? I think I missed that!