Until yesterday, I had never even tasted rhubarb, let alone cooked with it. But there I was at Whole Foods, where they manage to make the most unlikely food look appetizing. Really, they should run a dayspa. Anyway, I brought home a few stalks and Mary and I had some fun with it.
After trimming the ends off the stalks, we sliced it up and threw it in a pot with a pint or so of beautiful strawberries, 3/4 c sugar, and 1/4 c water. After a few minutes of bubbling gently on medium heat, the inside of the rhubarb turned from green to yellow, it all thickened up, and we plopped it into some thawed puff pastry I happened to have. 25 minutes at 400F later, we had a strawberry rhubarb tart, and being great fans of tart+sweet, the John and the girls all enjoyed it.
By the way, while researching exactly what you do with rhubarb, I found out that the leaves of the rhubarb are poisonous! Mary and I would both like to know how they found out the stalks were okay....
