Lifestyle

How To Freeze Rhubarb

Rhubarb is a vegetable often grown and consumed in the winter. The vegetable has a red-colored stalk and is sour in taste. Residents of European countries consume rhubarb with added sweeteners. Rhubarb has medicinal properties, thus, used as a medicine.    

Rhubarb requires a cold environment to grow. Usually grown in mountainous regions. North America and Northern Europe have recognized rhubarb as a garden plant. Consumption of rhubarb is possible after proper cooking with sweeteners because it has a citric taste.    

Rhubarb is merrily cooked as traditional desserts, pies, soup, jams, sauces, tarts, crumbles, cocktails, and rhubarb wine. North Americans sometimes call Rhubarb a Pie Plant because of its history. It is called so because of its traditional nature of being made into pie. This blog discusses how delicious rhubarb can be stored for a more extended period.

Methods To Freeze Rhubarb

Rhubarb is a liked vegetable in the American and European regions. Because of its unavailability in every season, rhubarb is often preserved by freezing. This helps in using the vegetable for various purposes during all times. There are certainly effective ways to freeze the rhubarb correctly. 

1. Raw Rhubarb

Firm and crisp rhubarb stalks must be used to freeze it raw. The process through which raw rhubarb can be frozen are:

• Gently remove the rhubarb leaves and cut the stalks into even medium-sized pieces. 
• Place the rhubarb stalks in a tray and open freeze them. Please make sure all the stalks are similar in size so that it freezes evenly.
• Tip the frozen stalks into an airtight container or plastic bag. This method of freezing can be used to store the rhubarb for three months.

2. Blanched Rhubarb

The rhubarb can also be preserved by blanching it. This is an easy method to preserve uncooked rhubarb. The process to freeze it is as follows:

• Cut the rhubarb into equally small pieces.
• Blanch the rhubarb stalks in boiling water for around 1 minute.
• Transfer the rhubarb pieces into cold water(water with ice cubes) to cease the effect of boiling water.
• Immediately drain the cool water and allow the rhubarb pieces to dry.

• In order to use the rhubarb all at once, tip the pieces into an airtight plastic container and directly freeze it. This will make the rhubarb pieces to stick together.
• In order to use the rhubarb pieces independently for different purposes, align the pieces into a lined tray/baking sheet, and open freeze it for two hours.

3. Cooked Rhubarb

The simplest method to freeze rhubarb is by cooking it first. The process enables one to use the rhubarb for different motives. The process through which one can cook rhubarb before freezing is as follows.

• Tip the evenly cut rhubarb pieces into a pan and add some liquid. The liquid can be any fruit juice or simply water.
• As rhubarb is sour in taste, add ¼ of sugar or any sweetening agent as you please. This is necessary for eliminating the citric taste of rhubarb.
• Simmer the ingredients with the rhubarb stalks until it’s tender. 
• Turn off the flame/stove, and allow it to cool.
• Once cooled, tip the cooked stalks in an airtight container or plastic bags to store them in the freezer.

4. Roasted Rhubarb

Another simple way to freeze rhubarb is to roast them. This is another simple way to keep the rhubarb fresh and edible after days effectively. The simple process of roasting rhubarb before freezing is:

• Cut the rhubarb into finger-sized pieces and mix sugar or any desired sweetener to eliminate its citric taste.
• Heat the oven at 180 degrees fan and place the rhubarb in the oven. Do not forget to cover the rhubarb with aluminum foil.
• After 15 mins remove the foil and roast for another 5 minutes.
• Following this, store the rhubarb in an airtight container and freeze it.

How To Defrost Rhubarb?

Frozen rhubarb is as easy to defrost as it was to freeze. Just leave the desired amount of rhubarbs at room temperature for several hours. The rhubarbs will defrost themselves. To avoid uneven breaking off pieces, gently separate the defrosted rhubarbs. 

Uses Of Frozen Rhubarb

Frozen rhubarb can be used similarly to fresh rhubarb. Defrosting makes the rhubarb look like freshly cut rhubarbs. The various methods a rhubarb stalk can be used are:

• Rhubarb dessert- defrosted rhubarbs are excellent for a soft layer in desserts. The sweet citric taste makes the dessert super delicious. Frozen Rhubarbs that are roasted are perfect for dessert layers.
• Crumbles- raw or blanched rhubarb is excellent for the purpose of making a crumble. 
• Rhubarb Jam- Cooked defrosted rhubarbs are a perfect fit for rhubarb jam. The delicious nature of rhubarb makes a good jam.
• Rhubarb Pie- Pies are an absolute favorite dish when it comes to desserts. A delicious vegetable like rhubarb is traditionally known for being made into pies. So, one of the important dishes that can be made by defrosted rhubarb is a pie.
• Rhubarb soup- Rhubarb is known to have medicinal qualities. A rhubarb soup is a healthy option on any given day. Not only medicinal properties, but the delicious taste of rhubarb also contributes to a healthy and tasty soup.
• Sauce- rhubarb and other vegetables and herbs can be converted into a sauce that can act as a seasoning for meat.
• Tart- A tart that contains delicious rhubarb can be the highlight of a dinner party. Just mix some of the rhubarb with the custard filling and place a layer of the garnish’s stems. 
• Cocktail- A rhubarb cocktail might be a new drink to try. The rhubarbs can be tossed with gin or vodka to create a pink drink that is delicious in its way.
• Cakes and muffins- as a tasty vegetable, rhubarb is often used for making cakes and muffins. 

Conclusion

Here are the various methods of freezing the delicious pink vegetable, rhubarb. We have also listed the use of rhubarbs in general and after freezing them. Rhubarb has infinite more ways to amaze our taste buds. All you need is some experimentation. With the methods of preserving the rhubarbs for a longer time, you can keep creating new dishes any time you want. 

Sun Tea Recipe For A Newbie

Tea is a necessity. Period. But who does not know about how costly cooking gas is today. In that aspect, sun tea is a better alternative. Simply put, sun tea uses sun instead of gas. This unusual but exciting type of tea is getting famous day by day.

Many of you are wondering what this tea is. Well, tea leaves to release flavour in contact with liquid. The procedure uses this principle for making a cup of tea. In this guidepost, we will talk about this unique type of tea and ways of making it.

Knowing your sun tea in details

While someone is talking about making tea in particular, different people have different ways. Most of the time tea is something you make with hot boiling water. Then some add sugar or lemon or honey etc. etc. It is totally up to individual needs.

Most people use hot water because it is something that triggers tea leaves to release their flavor faster. But usually, people do not know the details. They do it because they have seen a particular procedure.

If more people knew the procedure of tea making with sunlight in summer, it could be a mainstream thing. Many people mix tea with their workout drink. Why? Because it becomes tasty. Also, it has zero calories.

So sun tea is an iced tea that uses the heat of the sunny summer. Generally, black teas are standard in this picture, but herbal teas, green teas are also becoming familiar with the total concept.

How do you make sun tea?

Well, until now I bet you all are thinking that making tea with sunshine is scary complicated. It is not. However, the procedure needs a bit of preparation. For newbies staying alert while making it is a crucial thing to do all the time.

Now let us look at the ingredients—nothing fancy here.

You need six to eight tea bags, around seven cups of water, ice, mint leaves, or lemon (optional). 

• At first, you need to fill the sun tea jar with the water. 
• Now add the tea bags into the water.
• Then you need to place the jar in a sunny spot. It will take nearly three hours.

How warm is that particular day also will make an affect how fast the tea is made.

• When you feel the tea is dark in color and flavor, you need to remove the tea bags. The procedure is complete.
• Now you can add ice or mint leaves when serving. You can also taste this with any homemade syrup.

Refrigeration is also a way to get a slightly different taste. But if you refrigerate, make sure that you drink it within two or three days. It will only last until that. Boiling water provides us with more flexibility, though.

Different teas and additives

There are many types of tea blends that are useful in making sun tea. People prefer herbal tea and green tea more though. But the mainstream object here is the black teas. It is like a conventional or go-to blend for most people.

Standard ice tea blends are trendy too. Specific ice tea bags are larger than usual ones. You have to manage here. More giant tea bags are family bags. If you use these family bags, use three bags instead of six to eight bags.

You can add your homemade additives into your tea. Take an equal amount of sugar with water and start heating it until the mixture dissolves completely. Mix it with your tea and enjoy the taste.

Always remember to add lemon slices and mint leaves only after the addition of syrup. It simply tastes better on a hot sunny day. Also do not forget to refrigerate or to add ice.

If you do not want sweet tea or extra calories, skip the additives part. You can and mix your syrup according to your taste also. If you don’t want to taste intense sweetness, you better add your syrup one-third of what you generally add.

Though it is not a usual thing, honey can also be used as an alternative to your syrup. Fit people can avoid sugar-syrup because of its dietary effect. But honey is something that anyone can trust upon.

Storing your sun tea and preparation time

If you are in a hurry, you can freeze some ice cubes beforehand and add them directly to your tea. But it is conventional to store your jar in the freezer. It is summer, and you want your tea cold. That is why refrigeration is essential.

Preparation Time:

Preparation time is the trickiest part of all the steps. If you are in luck of a super sunny day, then the preparation can take as little as one hour. But also a convenient way comes in the play.

Here three hour is the conventional time. Depending upon the strength of the sunlight, the time also varies. If it is not such a sunny day, the procedure can extend up to five hours.

The overall thing is strong sunny weather means less time and a weak sun results in more time. You can think sun tea preparation is over when a full red colour appears in the jar. 

Sun Tea Risks

Although it is rare, there is some risk in the making of sun tea. The problem arises when bacterial growth comes into the scene. Boiling water eliminates this threat. When boiling, there is no risk of bacterial growth.

Because of the boiling temperature, no bacteria can survive. But normal or mildly warm water is not capable of killing bacterial growth. Alongside the water, tea leaves out in the sun trigger bacterial rise in the jar.

The best method to cope up with this is to take precautions. You already know normal water cannot eliminate bacteria on its own. So first wash your container in soap water and then in bleach as an extra caution.

Do not let the jar stay in the sun for more than three or four hours. Also, do not prepare more than you need for a day. Also, avoid herbal tea as it lacks caffeine. Less caffeine means more vulnerability to bacteria.

Grow Your Emergency Vegetable Garden Easily

It is always beneficial to have some precautionary knowledge about impromptu gardening handy. Always remember that during times of crisis, even the most robust stockpile will eventually run out. But your ability to grow your own food will never leave you hungry. In this article, we will cover almost the entirety of how to grow an emergency vegetable garden, the survival garden layout.

The Right Place For Building An Emergency Garden

If there is a place in your house or apartment exposed to the sun for about four to six hours per day, you can easily grow your food there.

Small green-space: 

Even as little space as a single 8x4inches or a square area of the same is plenty for growing tons of green. For a small space in the front or back yard and patio spaces, the option of a raised soil bed is the best for emergency gardening.

Lifetime raised bed building can cost a fortune to build, and they are unnecessary if you are aiming to build just a survival garden. For that, you can use bricks to create a sturdy soil bed, and that too for very cheap. You can also repurpose materials such as wood, tires, or anything else that can hold soil.  

Balcony: 

Those who have a balcony can start by collecting several large containers, as big as they can find. Some container ideas are small-sized trash can, five-gallon buckets, big rectangular multi-purpose plastic containers, etc.

Next, you have to create a small hole at the bottom of the container by drilling, poking, or melting for proper drainage. If you are opting to buy new containers, you can choose from various garden pots to hanging baskets.

Window:

If you have a window with railings, then you can hang small plant pots from them. You can also build a small indoor survival garden near the window that gets plenty of sunlight. Wooden planks can also be used for making landings on or near the windows to build a small vegetable garden.  

Prepping The Site Before Putting Soil Beds Down

Many make the mistake of not prepping the place which you are considering to build an emergency garden. Start by removing any sod/grass in the site where you will have the raised bed. If you have enough time in hand, you can also use a tarp or black plastic to kill the grass in the desired area by staking the plastic sheet down at the bed site and letting it cook in the sun.

Killing grasses will reduce the growth of weeds poking in your garden in the future. If you don’t have enough time for removing the grass underneath, you can choose to shovel out the sods. Once killing all sods is done, you can place your soil bed on top. For further protection, you can also put landscape fabric to prevent weed growth.

Fill Your Containers Or Raised Beds With The Right Mixture

It is important to have the right mixture for filling the containers and raised beds. One such common effective mixture is one part garden soil, one part compost, and one post vermiculite, perlite, or sand. You can find and purchase these ingredients from your local garden store.

However, if you don’t have much space or ingredients and will work in smaller soil beds or containers, you can also work with organic potting soil with home-made compost.

The Right Way To Plant 

It is a common strategy to plant seeds at a depth of almost three times the diameter of the seed itself in the soil. However, when it comes to fine seeds, which are much smaller in size, they should be scattered on top of the soil and lightly pressed down.

It would be best if you never grow fruit trees on your lawn. It is because the watering and fertilization schedule of lawns will greatly vary from what actually the fruit trees will need.

Near climbing plants such as tomato, beans, peas, etc., a stake or trellises should also be planted. While planting the seeds, make sure you leave enough space near them. This is done so that you are able to weed out by moving around the plant in the future after they grow.

Best Plants To Grow In An Emergency Garden

Some of the best plants to grow in containers in case of an emergency garden are-

• Tomatoes
• Peppers
• Carrots
• Cucumber
• Spinach
• Zucchini
• Winter Squash
• Leaf Lettuce
• Potatoes
• Kale
• Beans
• Beetroots
• Green Onions
• Herbs
• Radishes

Some Advices For Maintaining Your Garden

To achieve a happy and healthy growing emergency garden, you must take the following points into account-

• It is best to water your garden every day than dumping water once a week. The vegetable gardens need about an inch of water every week. And if you have or are planning to plant them in containers, then they might need a little more water. The easiest point to remember is that if the soil feels dry, then your garden needs water.

• You will need to get rid of weeds often. Weeds growing in your garden will compete with your plants for obtaining water and nutrition, which will adversely affect your sown plants’ health. Hence, you will need to keep the soil beds weed-free. In comparison to big gardens, weeding out the emergency garden will be comparatively easy because it has a smaller bed.

• In an emergency garden, compost is the only fertilizer you will truly need. Having some good compost is handy. It is because you can use that compost to sprinkle on the base of the plant (top dress) if any of your plants look unhealthy.

• Mulch is your garden’s friend because it helps to store the moisture longer and keep the weeds down. You can put a thick layer of mulch around your established plants. People use hay/straws, wood chips, seedless grass clippings, pine shavings, newspaper, etc., as mulch.  

• It is best not to leave ripe vegetables and fruits on the plants because most of them like to be picked. Make sure to pick cucumbers often, clip the herbs, harvest the beans, etc. If you leave them on the vine, then the plant will receive the signal that the season of production is over and hence will either go dormant or start to seed or, worse, die.

• Make it a habit to visit and check your garden every day. This will give you the opportunity to check on the moisture content in the soil, free your emergency garden soil of weeds, and pick green goods. It is also proven that engaging in gardening activities also improves the mental health of people.  

This article has almost covered instructing about all necessary criteria for growing an emergency vegetable garden. Now you can easily grow your own food at home. I hope the information we provided has empowered you. Remember that no time is better for growing plants than starting now.