As rhubarb comes into season here in upstate New York, and lemons go out of season in Florida, I am leaning toward making rhubarb juice and including it instead of lemon juice in my morning tonic.  I canned rhubarb juice about three years ago, but my then college age daughter and her friends discovered how good it is in cocktails, and it vanished!

There are wonderful rhubarb recipes online, not all highly sweetened – this morning I was drooling over, the recipes in three blogs: Sheeats.ca, LocalKitchenblog.com and PunkDomestics.com.  Dried rhubarb as an additive to last month’s recipe for tiger nut granola . . . I want it!

I checked the nutritional information as best I could – I could only find unsweetened rhubarb with pulp included, but it is a good source of vitamin C (although lemon juice is perhaps 8 times a better). It does have iron (only 3%, but lemon juice has none), 10 times as much calcium, and 5 times as much Vitamin A.

I only have two rhubarb plants, but I know folks with way more than they think they want. Maybe I’ll make a deal with them to harvest and process theirs, and give them a share of the products. Maybe next year, they will want to join in a work party making rhubarb juice (super easy with a steam juicer), dried rhubarb, and just canning or freezing it for adding to apple sauce, crisps, ice cream, etc. later in the year.  I might try facto-fermenting it, or making rhubarb chutney . . . since I’m eating low-carb, I want to avoid the sugar, but it adds a nice tang to other fruits . . . obviously, I’m excited!

As soon as I get the newest addition to the Stone Quarry House furnished  (I should probably blog about that, and get some photos up here too) I’m out to the garden and into the kitchen for some rhubarb goodness.