Spring Rhubarb and a Saturday Dinner

It's time to take a small break, at least one post, from my reflection on Paris. It's been quite the whirlwind around here as we put the house up for sale and look forward to a new great adventure, while at the same time embracing our time in Green River, traveling for fun, and keeping up with work and work travel demands. I've traveled for the past 6 weeks and have two more weeks of work travel to go, before getting a week at home. As I pack for this next trip, you can imagine how much I've enjoyed the past three days at home. I've been able to walk with my good friend, Kathy, and enjoy my kitchen. I do miss my kitchen when traveling.

Yesterday amidst, walking and working outside, I managed to spend quite a few hours putzing through a Saturday dinner for me and my husband. I have so many recipes in my to-do list, but the focus of this meal started with the amazing rhubarb growing in my back yard. Just check out that pretty patch above and this is after I took out two cups of stalks! Aren't those bright green leaves pretty?

As I was chopping the rhubarb, I popped (as always) a raw piece in my mouth. The flavor just pops in my mouth and while at first I get the overwhelming tart, afterward, I enjoy the rhubarb flavor and find myself looking forward even more to what I am baking.

I had lots of rhubarb options, pies, custard bars, compotes, but this recipe for a Rhubarb Custard Crumb Pie had grabbed me a couple days ago. This pie is from a new blog I've discovered, Apt. 2B Baking Co. In this blog, Yossy uses a lot of different grains, of which I'm a big fan, so I am fully enjoying this blog. In addition, I had a plethora of eggs and cream in the fridge to use up from ice cream experiments, so I had been leaning toward custard.

Don't be scared off by the rye dough or the measurements in ounces. I don’t have a great kitchen scale and yet my measurement of ounces came out fine.

Yossy says she adapted the rye pie dough from Kim Boyce's Good to the Grain cookbook. A cookbook, which I own and must use more! It tasted so earthy, but it did not have a strong rye taste. The dough went very well with the rhubarb. If you read the whole recipe through ahead of time, always a good idea, it would be easy to get scared off because of the time it takes to make the dough. Just do it! I will try the dough as listed, but did not have that time yesterday and just let it sit in the fridge about 45 minutes each time. The dough was still very tender. My only suggestion would be to use plenty of beans or pie weights when prebaking to keep the sides from falling down.

While it seems only right to start with the pie, it's now time to go backwards.

I marinated one of my last remaining chickens from last fall’s trip to Utah Natural Meat in a mustard based marinade, using a wonderful hearty Balsamic Mustard given to me by my mother-in-law. I look forward to finding fun uses for the other Mustard versions she gave me that were created near her by a small business in Kentucky. I based this recipe on the Honey Mustard Glazed Chicken Thighs in the most recent Clean Eating magazine.   The recipe isn't online yet.

The dish is simple with roasted bell peppers and the marinated chicken topped at the end with chopped parsley and toasted almonds.

I did pull the rhubarb into the main meal, via the salad. I tossed rhubarb and sweet onions in a little sugar and roasted them. I tossed them in the salad with feta and roasted walnuts and a quick balsamic vinaigrette.

Don’t ever underestimate the calm joy of quiet time in the kitchen followed by a nice dinner with someone you love.