A recipe with two ingredients a little time in the dehydrator with a big pay off: rhubarb sour candy from the garden!
These taste like if Sour Patch® had a kid with simple ingredients + kept the fiber. I like the big flavor coupled with the little chew. I get to help out at our local elementary school, and the kids go crazy for them every year!
It is a great, simple way to use up some of the rhubarb and not make yet another crisp… but if you’re looking for tips on growing rhubarb or other recipes, I have you covered.
Rhubarb Sour Candy Recipe
Ingredients:
4-5 stalks of Rhubarb
1 cup sugar
1 cup water
Directions: Slice the rhubarb lengthwise on a mandolin (I use my thin setting) leaving them as long as you can. This is the putzy part, and I usually save the extras pieces that don’t make nice long strips for making rhubarb sauce or something.
Mix a 1:1 sugar/water solution into a medium sized sauce pan so the rhubarb slices fits easily.
Simmer for 3-5 minutes or until you notice the stalk strips becoming much softer. Then, using a pair of tongs, gently pull out the strips and lay flat on either a dehydrator tray or parchment paper.
Set dehydrator to 140F and let them go for 7-8 hours, or set your oven at the lowest setting (usually 225F) and watch closely after 15 minutes. Remove from dehydrator or oven and let cool completely.
Chop into desired sizes, and store in airtight container for up to 1 week. (But they will be gone before that!)
Let me know if you try this fun “nature’s own” rhubarb sour candy recipe and what you think of it!
Growing edible perennials in the north is so valuable! Even though I am starting all kinds of food crop seeds inside while there’s still snow outside, the first crops I harvest always end up being our early spring perennials. Plus spring perennials play well with other early spring annuals like salads and radishes.
It can feel like a superpower to be eating from your land as early as May, especially when all you did was rake back a few leaves…
Why Grow Edible Perennials in Cold Climates?
We have an extremely short growing season in Minnesota, under 150 days! So we need plants that can take the freezing cold and then warm up fast, and early spring perennials make it happen.
Let’s shrink your lawn with sustainable turf alternatives!
This guest post is brought to us by the legend, Bob Dahm. Many of my Midwest garden friends will know him as “Organic Bob,” which is how I knew him when we first met about 5 years ago.
He has guided our family on our own home lawn re-seeding (with tougher native grasses) and bee lawn areas with great success. This is because he sees our yards and gardens as integral parts of the natural world, not separate from them.
Are you itching to get planting but the soil isn’t warming fast enough?
Growing under the cover of a low tunnel is the answer to jump start your spring vegetable garden. Most of the veggies shown here were started under a DIY low tunnel.
These temporary structures are basically ‘low to the ground’ greenhouses, hence the ‘low’ tunnel. The simple, arched structures are efficient at trapping passive solar heat and holding it in the soil. In Minnesota we often get snow into April, so the reinforced arches are key to keeping plants happy during spring storms.
Inexpensive and easy to build, low tunnels can be popped up anywhere, so they’re perfect for small space gardens. They also work well with crop rotation, as you can move where you’re growing your earliest crops each season.
If you love growing beautiful medicine that also attracts the pollinators, then let me introduce you to Aronia Berry, aka Chokeberry. Actually, you may have already met Aronia Berry while walking in the woods or edges of prairies in the Midwest of America.
Officially named Aronia melanocarpa, this cold hardy North American native woody shrub is worth adding to your landscape for its adaptability, form, fall color, and, of course, its fruits!
Aronia Berry: Knowing + Growing
The aronia berry tends to stay around 8 feet tall (depending on variety) and is much less picky about soil as it has deeper roots than the elderberry. They are hardy to -40F or USDA Zone 3. They also don’t have any pest issues and are disease resistant.
I love a versatile soup—and this healthy broccoli soup recipe can be tweaked so many ways, from silky smooth puree to a hearty chunky pottage, to cheesy and creamy decadence—but it all starts with some beautiful broccoli!
Start with the Best Broccoli
Broccoli is one of our family’s favorite garden veggies to grow. So much so that my boys will even go patrol for cabbage worms, the little green guys that can ravage this plant if left to their own munching.
I also love that when we eat broccoli, we’re eating the immature flower buds! I used to tell my boys they were eating broccoli bouquets, and I like to think that helped them grow in their love for this powerhouse veggie.
I’ve had good luck growing Bellstar, Emerald Crown, and Green Magic varieties of broccoli in our zone 4 gardens (all from Johnny’s Seeds).
Harvesting Tip** Soak your broccoli florets in salty water (1 Tbsp in a bowl of water) for a few minutes so any creepy crawlies float to the top!
Because it is a family favorite veggie, we grow a lot of broccoli and usually have some frozen to use during the winter months. And while we love many veggies from green beans to corn simply heated and eaten as side dishes straight from the freezer, I find broccoli needs a little extra love once frozen.
Soup is the perfect spin!
In addition to the blanched and frozen broccoli from the garden, I’m also saving broccoli stems all season to use in this broccoli soup. To make the best use of them, peel the ‘skin’ from the tender part of the stems closer to the buds. Toss the woody part (further down the stem) into the compost. These add great bulk and flavor to soups. And by peeling, you’ll get rid of the most gas-inducing part of the broccoli!
My secret ingredient in so many pureed soups is a little cream cheese. It adds such a depth of flavor and pairs well with broccoli.
You can keep it really simple, and even skip the pureeing, if you like it chunky. If leaving this kind of soup chunky, make sure to not overcook the vegetables. You can also add up to half cauliflower if preferred. See, super-flexible soups really are the best!
I’ve added the white beans and/or potatoes as a way to thicken this soup without adding gluten, and I like the flavor better too. Leave out the cream/cheese if you want to keep it dairy free or vegan.
Healthy Broccoli Soup Recipe
Ingredients:
1 medium yellow onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1-2 celery ribs, chopped
1-2 yellow/white carrots (optional)
1 tsp thyme
1-2 cups shredded zucchini (optional but great thickener)
2-3 Yukon Gold potatoes, chopped
4-5 cups broccoli stems and florets (frozen is fine)
6 cups chicken (or veggie) stock
½ cup white beans (optional)
1 cup milk, or ½ cup of half and half, or ¼ cup of cream cheese
Salt + pepper to taste
Olive oil to sauté
Our family’s favorite garnishes for this healthy broccoli soup recipe are roasted chickpeas, pea shoots, green onion—and of course always served with toasted bread.
Directions:
Chop veggies into desired sizes, considering if you’ll be pureeing.
Sauté onions for a few minutes, then add garlic, thyme, and celery.
A few minutes later add the shredded zucchini, potatoes, and stock. If you have lots of good broccoli stems, add those in now as well. Simmer for 10 minutes.
Then add in broccoli florets and cook for another 5-10. Or if pureeing, add florets at same time, cooking for 10-15 minutes total.
You can puree some stock with the white beans to thicken, or add milk, half and half, or cream cheese while pureeing as well.
Have fun garnishing! We love to sprinkle microgreens on top of our soups. And make sure that bread is extra toasty!
Who doesn’t love a good two for one? I’m here to show you that you can have your squash and eat the seeds too! So many of us skip over roasting pumpkin seeds and squash seeds because we’ve had a bad experience. Maybe you did it once and they were, well, stringy, chewy, like eating straw… and just not very good at all.
Well, that probably comes down to two main problems:
The wrong seed
The wrong preparation
So let’s get you back on track to using all of that pumpkin/squash/gourd! And if you’re into squash like I am, check out my Pumpkin Spice cake recipe, and my Winter Squash Lasagna recipe too!
I never met a zucchini I didn’t like. I’ll grill them, relish them, pickle them and freeze them all season long. But at least once (or twice) a summer I’ll bake up a storm with them too. And over the years I’ve tried and loved many versions of zucchini breads and desserts- but I think I’ve settled on this as my favorite. Adding some fresh whipped cream and sour cherry sauce doesn’t hurt either…
Cucurbit What? All squash and zucchini are in the Cucurbit family (along with cucumbers, melons, gourds etc.) All zucchini are squash, but not all squash are zucchini…
There are few crops as funky, dependable, and well loved as garlic. For good reasons too! Garlic, and the other bulbs in the Allium family (like onions and shallots), add the base flavor to meals the world over. They’re easy to grow, easy to store, and easy to cook with.
Humans have been cultivating garlic for over 7,000 years! In that time, we’ve selected variations in flavor, size, growth habits to come up with roughly 700 current varieties.
This article will help you grow your own garlic too!
As sunlight hours (if not warmer temps) return to Minnesota, so do the backyard eggs. This gluten free Strata recipe is a beautiful way celebrate the return of spring and fresh eggs. It is also a healthy family favorite, and a great way to sneak in all kinds of veggies.
On Our Suburban Homestead
I love how our chickens help keep us in tune with nature’s cycles. If you’ve been interested in starting a backyard flock of your own, or want to learn where you can buy local farm fresh eggs, I’ve got you covered. This is a family favorite for breakfast, lunch or dinner. Especially when the boys go and collect the eggs then crack them right into the mixing bowl!
