Recipe - Rhubarb Strawberry Sauce

10 lg Stalks rhubarb; trimmed and
cut into 1" lengths
4 cup Hulled; halved strawberries
1 cup Sugar
1 cup Fresh orange juice
Finely grated zest of 1
orange
Finely grated zest of 1
lemon
2 teaspoon Ground ginger
One half teaspoon Salt; (optional)
One half Vanilla bean; split
lengthwise

I just made the most DELICIOUS and EASY recipe, I'm dying to share it it
with you. It came for a SAD cookbook I have that is not too bad actually:
The New Basics by Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins. It was given to me as a
housewarming gift, and I use it mostly as a reference how long to cook
vegetables I'm not familiar with, etc. I have tried to make some of their
recipes, converting to nonfat in the usual ways, and it usually works.

Anyway, this recipe is completely vegan. I saw some rhubarb in the store
and I LOVE it, so I decided to bring it home and see what I could do. I had
no idea how to cook it, but found this DELISH recipe:

Combine all ingredients in a heavy saucepan. Stir well and bring to a boil
over medium heat. Reduce heat and simmer, stirring once and skimming off
any foam that forms on top, until the rhubarb is just tender, 1012
minutes. Remove the vanilla bean and let the mixture cool to room
temperature. Cover and refridgerate. It will keep for 2 days.

My hints:

1) The recipe is very tolerant. I 1/4'd the recipe, then halved the sugar
from that, my OJ was not fresh, I had no zest of anything so just used
lemon juice. It was still delicious.

2) I do suggest cutting down the sugar for those watching calories. I cut
sugar always, sometimes leaving it off altogether. Rhubarb is tart though,
so you can experiment and find your happy medium.

3) FOR INDIVIDUALS: this recipe lends itself well to being made in a small
batch. I quartered it by using 3 small rhubarb stalks, about a cup of
strawberries (I didn't measure, just dropped them right into the pan), etc
and it came out great. It made enough for a 2 rhubarb/strawberries crepes 2
days in a row.

4) CREPES: this is GREAT in crepes. For those in the Bay Area, I bought
some readymade crepes at Andronico's. These are NOT lowfat or vegan. They
have 20% fat. However, each crepe is 25 calories with 5 from fat; for me,
having 2 crepes with 10 calories from fat is acceptable given the way I eat
the rest of the time.

5) They suggest putting it on gingerbread. I think it would be great on
anything you normally but jam on.
Posted to fatfree digest by "Ellen M. Sentovich" ellens@Cadence.COM on
May 7, 1998