To me, nothing says spring like fresh rhubarb. I share the history of my fourth-generation rhubarb plants and my love for their ruby-red stalks this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon. But what I’m really saying is that you couldn’t eat as much rhubarb as I have, and from such a young age, without becoming hooked on its tart fruit.

My pie-making grandmother baked plenty of those stalks between layers of her flaky crusts, but my mom was the master of rhubarb crisps. My column features a hybrid version of her recipe, mixed with apples and sweetened with a little honey, but you can find a pure rhubarb version here on the blog.

Learn more about baking with rhubarb and get the complete recipe for Rhubarb–Apple Crisp in my column.

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Twice as Tasty

An established rhubarb plant tends to be prolific. Although my two heirloom plants stay relatively small in their well-shaded bed, the large plant in our sunny vegetable garden is already up to my knees. Besides pies and crisps, I’ve come up with many ways to enjoy this bounty. I even created savory Rhubarb Kimchi and Fermented Rhubarb Pickles for my cookbook, The Complete Guide to Pickling, and you’ll find my favorite recipe that uses the latter, Spiced Chickpeas with Fermented Rhubarb, in The Pickled Picnic.

You can find many sweet ways to use rhubarb in the blog’s recipe index. Here are a few of my favorites.

• Rhubarb Curd
• Rhubarb–Huckleberry Galette
• Rhubarb–Rosemary Syrup
• Rhubarb–Orange–Ginger Marmalade
• Rhubarb–Earl Grey Jam

Last summer, I experimented with some new rhubarb uses shared by Joel MacCharles and Dana Harrison in Batch. I’ve been sprinkling their rhubarb salt on Chocolate–Sour Cream Cookies. My brother-in-law, who did not grow up eating rhubarb regularly and doesn’t quite share my obsession, did fall for the sour rhubarb candies, twice dehydrated and dipped in maple syrup. For another more sweet–sour rhubarb flavor, turn the stalks into a shrub.

Want more Twice as Tasty recipes? Get my books! Click here to order a personally signed, packaged, and shipped copy of The Complete Guide to Pickling directly from me. I also share tasty ways to use pickles in The Pickled Picnic, a digital collection in an easy-to-read PDF format; it’s only available here.