Happy Mother's Day and a recipe

Happy Mother's Day to all you mamas out there!  It's been a nice day in my neck of the woods with a little lawn chair sitting, a little iced tea, and a little book and magazine reading.  I did also do a little mowing with the rider, but just a little bit.  I'm trying to be more restful on Sundays.  However, I know several mamas out there who are "on duty" this fine Mother's Day.  They are nursing sick children, feeding hungry babies, disciplining unruly toddlers, and moving college students home from school.  A mom's job is never done, really.  We must always be able to see the good and be thankful for each day and each duty and each Someone that God gives us under the sun.

Today I'm sharing a picture of my flower patch and my lawn chair sitting spot along with my rhubarb patch.  It's growing beautifully.  We had a nice thunderstorm overnight and it was just the thing for the rhubarb as well as all the other green things growing.  I also want to share a recipe with you for Rhubarb Salsa.  I know!  Can it really be good?  Yes!  It's fabulous!  OnlyDaughter brought some out a couple days ago for us to try and we all loved it.  I insisted that we make another batch so we did and we tried it out on the rest of the families here.  Even the kiddos liked it.  I'm sorry I don't have a fine picture to show you, but we ate it all up!

Rhubarb Salsa

Serves: 4-6 persons

 

The rhubarb replaces tomato in this unique salsa. To balance the tartness, I've added some honey and the kick of a jalapeno will bring it together for a surprising burst of flavor!

 

Ingredients

• rhubarb (1 to 1½ cups) diced small
• ¼ cup of sweet bell pepper, diced (I used red and orange)
• 2 tablespoons of diced white or red onion
• 2 tablespoons of diced scallions
• 1 jalapeño, seeds removed and diced (used red pepper flakes)
• 1 to 2 tablespoons of cilantro, chopped
• 1 tablespoon of lime juice
• 1 tablespoon of apple cider vinegar
• 2 teaspoons of honey (raw if you have it)
• kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper to taste

Instructions

1. Heat 2 cups of water in a saucepan to boiling. Blanch rhubarb by placing in the boiling water for 10 to 20 seconds. Quickly remove the rhubarb and place in a colander. Run cold water over the rhubarb to stop the cooking process. Blot the rhubarb with a paper towel to dry.
2. In a separate bowl, combine the bell pepper, onion, scallions, jalapeño, and cilantro. Add rhubarb and mix ingredients.
3. In a small separate bowl, dissolve the honey in the lime juice and apple cider vinegar. Drizzle this dressing over the rhubarb salsa and stir. Add the salt and pepper. Mix well.
4. Chill for at least 30 minutes.

This recipe comes from Simply Fresh Dinners 
so if you want to see a beautiful picture of the salsa, you can click over there and see how wonderful it is!  I wanted to tell you that I didn't have jalapeno so I used red pepper flakes.  I didn't have scallions either so we added a little more onion.  I had lemon juice instead of lime juice.  I also threw in a tablespoon or so of diced Hatch chilies from my freezer.  So you see, you can fiddle with this recipe to your tastes as I always do as I did.  We at our salsa on corn chips and later that night I had it on my tacos.  Scrumptious! 

Some of my fondest memories are picking rhubarb at my Grandma & Grandpa's farm.  It was a prized fruit and Grandpa took good care of it making sure to heap on the decomposed horse manure every fall.  We kids would eat the picked stalks raw, dipped in sugar.  (We also ate crab apples and choke cherries fresh -- SOUR!)  Do you grow rhubarb?  What are your favorite rhubarb recipes?