Fresh Produce of the Month - Roundup and Announcement

May is over, and the Fresh Produce of the Month roundup is here for you to enjoy. The chosen produce for May was... Rhubarb!
Indeed, quite a few people told me about how many rhubarb plants they had in their garden, so I'm glad it turned out to be a good choice.

One of these lucky people having an abundance of rhubarb was Ferdzy, from Seasonal Ontario Food. Ferdzy had 15 rhubarb plants in her garden, and sent me two recipes for this month event! Thank you so much, Ferdzy. One of them was this wonderful looking 'Coconut macaroon tart with tart fruit'. This cake can be made with different tart fruits, or with rhubarb, thus showing a not well known but I'm sure really good combination of this produce and coconut.



The other recipe from Ferdzy is 'Sherry stewed rhubarb', a simple and delicious stew made with a special, small type of rhubarb stalk, less tart than the big stalks.







Maria from Seasonal Desserts sent an amazing variation that she invented on the theme of 'Sbrisolona', a traditional Italian crumbly cake. She used rhubarb as a filling for this cake. Trust me, sbrisolona is something absolutely amazing, that everyone should taste once in their life. This rhubarb variation seems like a wonderful idea, and I have this recipe bookmarked for the near future (before the rhubarb season ends. :) ).







Happy Cook from My Kitchen Treasures gave us a recipe for 'Rhubarb soup with strawberry ice cream'. It's a soup made with a rhubarb base, and the addition of fresh strawberry and strawberry ice cream. It sounds really good! Thanks, Happy Cook :)





Simona from Briciole had an amazing idea and made a 'Rhubarb marbled vanilla ice cream'. Can you imagine? The goodness of vanilla ice cream (and in Simona's version, it's made with real vanilla beans, a delight that's hard to imagine if you never tried it), mixed with the interesting flavor of rhubarb. I'd love to try this!





Finally, my (or, ehm, Matt's) entry for the event was this 'Strawberry-rhubarb pie', with homemade crust with lard! Really good, said by someone who thought didn't like pie crusts.. The filling is really delicious. Strawberry and rhubarb are usually paired for a reason!





So, we've arrived at the end of the roundup for this month. Thanks to everybody who took part and I hope you all will enjoy reading and maybe trying some of these recipes! For next edition, I have decided that the Fresh Produce of the Month will be dedicated to... peas!
In this picture you see two types of peas: sugar peas and snap peas. Every kind of pea is accepted, they are all delicious in my opinion! I'm very happy they are now in their full season, and they are going to stay in season throughout early summer.

If you want to participate to this month's edition, publish a post on your blog with a recipe involving peas. Add a link to this announcement and mention that it's an entry for the Fresh Produce of the Month event. Feel free to place the logo on your post if you like it.
2. Send me an email with a link to your post, your blog homepage and your name at chemcookitATgmailDOTcom. Specify 'Fresh Produce of the Month: Peas' as subject. A photo is optional, though helpful.
3. If you don't have a blog just send me an email with your recipe and, if you have a picture of the food you made, that's great: I will add it to the roundup as well.

The deadline for entry submission is June 30th, 2009. I will post the roundup soon after.

Note: If you don't receive an answer to your email or a comment on your post within two days of sending me the email, please contact me again: sometimes email messages get lost in cyberspace.