Holey Rhubarb!

Some really big leaves popped up in the lower level of one of my raised bed gardens this summer. I hadn't planted anything there. I assumed it was a weed. Things were so busy, I didn't bother pulling it.

My dear friend Sue from Mr. Micawber's Recipe for Happiness educated me. Once you have a rhubarb plant, you have rhubarb for life. That suits Lizard just fine; strawberry rhubarb pie is one of his favorite deserts.

I assume some critter planted the rhubarb for me, perhaps a bird, but I guess it could have been a racoon or squirrel. Whatever planted it didn't come back to eat it. We have had more than our fair share of grasshoppers this year, and they have stripped my salad greens to the stalks. Made a mess of a few peppers, too. I keep finding chew spots on the giant rhubarb leaves, and I assume they come from our ranch of grasshoppers. Perhaps that's helping keep the numbers less than what it could be. One leaf bite, and no more grasshopper...

The rhubarb is definitely a photogenic plant. I've read new leaves look like green brains. So I keep trying to get photos, but the leaves grow and spread out too fast. I think the stalks are beautiful when they turn red.

I finally worked up the courage to snip a few stalks. If I was still natural dyeing, those giant leaves likely would produce some wonderful spring shades on yarn. For now, I'm just composting them, but not for the vegetable garden.

I bought a big container of strawberries (because I've never been successful in growing my own), then chopped them and the rhubarb stalks. I put them in a glass casserole dish with about a quarter cup of agave syrup. I baked for 45 minutes.

Lizard enjoyed the jam-like concoction warm out of the oven with French vanilla ice cream. I also put some in our plain yogurt, and I froze the rest.

I had never tasted rhubarb. Now I'm as hooked as Lizard. I might even start buying rhubarb from the grocery store when I'm not growing my own!

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Lizard's Fav

My sweet hubby's favorite cereal, other than Count Chocula, which is available only around Halloween and I have learned (the hard way) to stock up on each year, also goes through periods of inavailability, such as a pandemic. Grape Nuts doesn't have much of a market share, so it's not high on anyone's list but his.

When I couldn't find any, even online, during my most recent grocery shopping trip, I decided to look up recipes online, just in case it could be made from scratch. I'd never even eaten Grape Nuts, so I had no clue what to expect. I was thrilled to find a bunch of recipes, and I took what I liked from the most popular ones, made a few healthy substitutions, and then made a batch for my sweetie.

For the record, I like the concoction a bit better before it's dried out, which is supposed to be the key to deliciousness. But the dried-out version is just what Lizard desires, and he told me he likes my homemade version even better than the name brand! Guess I won't need to buy Grape Nuts anymore!

Homemade Healthy Grape Nuts

3/4 cups unbleached whole wheat flour
1/4 cup coconut flour
1/4 cup almond flour
1/4 cup hazelnut flour
1/4 cup quinoa flour
1/4 cup oat flour
1/4 cup flax meal
1/4 cup wheat bran
1/4 cup wheat germ
1 cup plain yogurt
1 cup smashed graham cracker crumbs
1/3 cup molasses
1/2 teaspoon pink Himalayan sea salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Combine all ingredients into bowl and fold. Mixture will be very thick. Spread mixture onto baking sheet as thin as possible. (I did not have parchment paper, which is recommended, so I used freezer paper. It sufficed.) Place in oven on middle rack until edges begin to brown (about 20 minutes). Remove from oven and allow to cool to room temperature. This step is critical and should not be rushed. I kept the oven on at 250°F for an hour or so to let it heat the kitchen but then turned it off. The giant slab of what looks like baby poo took a couple more hours of cooling, even though it was a very chilly day.

Once cool, cut or break into small pieces, place in food processor and grind into crumbs. I didn't want to use my brand new blender for that, so I used a rolling pin and the heels of my hands to crush the crunchy dough into small pieces. Preheat oven to 250°F if you turned it off. Place crumbs back on baking sheet, place in oven on middle rack and bake, turning sheet every 10 minutes, until crumbs are completely dry. Mine took a little longer than an hour, perhaps an hour and 20 minutes. Made the house smell fantastic. Remove from oven and try to keep hubby out of kitchen until crumbs cool. Actually, let him eat some if he wants. He deserves it, and he loves warm homemade healthy Grape Nuts!

Store uneated portion in airtight container, if there's any left. I don't know how long a batch this size will last stored because it was gone in three days at my house.

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Baked Green Tomatoes

Back in October, I brought in all my potted tomato plants (six big ones and six little ones!!!) to save them from the overnight freeze. There were plenty of green tomatoes on those vines, and I wasn't about to lose a single one. Have I mentioned tomatoes are my favorite food???

Have I mentioned tomatoes are Lizard's least favorite?!? Loves pizza. Loves spaghetti. Loves Tex Mex chili. Doesn't like tomatoes. Go figure. But that does mean I get his...

I didn't know if the tomatoes I brought in would ripen soon or take their time, or if they would even survive at all. I didn't know if any of the plants I brought inside would continue to produce inside. I've tried a few times in the past in the living room, where I have a picture window and grow lights and a pretty decent chill when the temperatures dip.

This time, I've set up the grow lights in the basement, and I have the plants beneath the window well that used to leak after every single storm. It's the only window well that gets a bit of sunlight each day. At least when the sun shines. The basement temperature is constant, and I didn't know if it would be warm enough.

Now that the tomatoes have been in the new indoor garden about a month, I'm enjoying about three or four fresh tiny little red, orange or yellow tomatoes each week. The beefsteak tomato plant does not look like it's going to do much, but the grape tomato plants seem to have adjusted and are actually blooming. I pinch the new blossoms each day.

I had several green tomatoes on the raised-bed garden vines, too, and I wasn't about to lose them, either.

I plucked the green outdoor tomatoes, sliced them, dipped the slices in cholesterol-free liquid eggs, dipped them in a whole wheat flour/quinoa/almond flour mix, sprinkled them with parmesan and asiago, then baked them in a tiny amount of avocado oil.

The final result was... not quite like what Mom made when I was young. They were okay. But they weren't like what Mom made.

So I called my mom. Got my dad first, and he told me how much he loves fried green tomatoes. I never knew!!!

Mom told me it's probably because I didn't fry them. Well, that probably is true, but we don't fry here at the Snowcatcher cuisine. So baked will have to do. Although I might not get another chance until first freeze next year...

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Spicy Noodles that Bite Back

We have been thoroughly enjoying local farmers markets this year. Tomatoes in my pretty-high altitude garden traditionally have not been as successful as I would like, and although I'll never give up trying, we decided this year we could fill in the kitchen gaps with home-grown that's not grown at my home. And we have not been disappointed!

Of course, no trip to a farmers market can rest upon JUST tomatoes. We've bought peaches, red onions, sweet Olathe corn, zucchini (another veggie I have not been able to successfully grow at home), homemade chili sauces (because sometimes I run out of my own homegrown chiles), a giant hibiscus, and, most recently, handcrafted, flavor-infused pasta.


Turns out Pappardelle's started right here in Denver, which makes the pasta even more of a treat for us. We like homemade. We like slow food. Turns out these guys were making slow food before it became a trend!

I've made homemade pasta, and there's nothing like it. But it's a long and messy process. I don't have time to make homemade pasta every week, although I wish I did! I've even played around with different flours and spices right in the noodles, so my first dish of Pappardelle's (which was a southwest blend) made me go back for more flavors!

Who can resist pasta made from Hatch chiles?!?


We've also enjoyed garlic basil noodles, as well as lime cilantro and porcini mushroom. But when you buy southwest-themed noodles, regular spaghetti sauce just won't do!

Pappardelle's has recipes to go with each flavor of noodle they make, but I like to do my own thing. Here's the scrumptious dish we enjoyed with our thick, flavorful spicy linguini noodles.

Spicy Noodles that Bite Back

After boiling water and cooking the noodles with a touch of avocado oil and garlic, I brown a package of turkey breakfast sausage (because we don't eat pork or beef) with minced fresh garlic and onion. The red onion comes from the farmers market because my onions don't grow quite big enough for cooking but are large enough to keep most bunnies out of my veggies.


I slice up four good-size tomatoes to toss in the blender. I add one of my own diced chiles from my own garden and with some chopped garlic and onion and a bit of avocado oil. Oh, and I recently discovered the secret to out-of-this-world homemade tomato sauce... a tablespoon of fresh honey or agave syrup! Blend until smooth.




Normally, I would slice the fresh Olathe (Colorado, not Kansas) sweet corn off the cob to add in to the turkey sausage, but there wasn't any at the farmers market last weekend. I hadn't been to the grocery store, where I also could buy sweet Olathe corn. So for this batch, I am using a can of white corn.


I also prefer soaking and cooking my own black beans, but that adds a few days to the process, and I didn't plan ahead this time. So a can of low-salt black beans will be added to the meat.


I dice a fresh avocado from the grocery store. The cleaned avocado pit goes in the freezer to be used as next summer's avocado dye, and the cleaned and torn-into-tiny-pieces skin goes into this summer's avocado dye jar.


By this time, the meat and the noodles both have cooled off. 16 ounces of fresh green chili go over the noodles, which are then stirred to saturate.


Now the meat, corn, beans and avocado are stirred in. Oh, does my kitchen smell heavenly!


Finally, the tomato sauce is poured over and stirred in. Ready to serve!


Additional avocado may be added just prior to eating to tone down the heat.

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Hot Stuff

What kinds of things can you do with Hatch chiles?






Well, there's the obvious...


















But there's so much more!!!




















The onion skins make good dye.


And you can plant the bottom of the onion to grow a new one! If you plant it in a pot, you can bring it in during winter and let it keep growing!

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