Spring Vegetable Medley Poached with Rhubarb & Lemon Verbena

I’m not sure about you but I find that because I really enjoy dining on veggies at every meal to help maintain the alkaline design of my body I have a pretty high standard for how I prefer them to taste.  My top priority is quality produce. I choose the freshest,  local and of course organic when ever possible which improves the overall flavour to start with.  Sometimes the veggies are so yummy I am eating them in the car on the way home!  But if I can pick them from my own garden then I’m in seventh heaven!  The rest of the year I make every effort to visit farmers markets and my local organic grocer to obtain my twice weekly haul of fresh veg.  Sometimes it involves more than one stop to find the variety I crave or need for my juicing regime so it is a commitment.  I highly recommend CSA deliveries if you have access to a local farmer who offers this service. This means you may have delivery service or you can pick up the wonderful weekly array of what’s growing seasonally and play with preparing some veggies you may have never tried before.  Even with the best ingredients I am always experimenting how to serve them in a delicious way with ever changing flavours and cooking techniques to provide variety in my diet.  I can tell you that when I meet a restaurant menu that is full of creative, healthfully prepared and delicious vegetable items, I totally want to kiss the cook!

You might have guessed that I am also an avid reader of all cook books vegetable related.  In fact I’d have to admit that I’m a little obsessed.  In one of my next posts here on the blog it’s my intention to share a hand full of some lovely books that I’ve been reading that inspire all kinds of tasty ideas that I know you’d enjoy too!

Now that rhubarb season is here I get excited about stewing rhubarb for a snack or dessert which is one of my favourite ways to enjoy it. But I also love to use it to season vegetables for it is a vegetable after all.  It’s unique flavour enhances a variety of vegetables especially when paired with verbena and/or lemon thyme.  I know not everyone has verbena on hand nor lemon thyme so you might like to play with fresh lemon grass or lime leaf for a bright flavour combination that suits your taste buds. No matter how you make rhubarb as long as you sweeten it with stevia or coconut nectar and don’t dump mountains of white sugar in your recipe, it’s a nutritious vegetable that is a great addition to an alkaline lifestyle as it is contains 10% of the overall daily calcium requirement.  It’s also a source of lutein which is excellent for skin and eye health as well as neutralizing free radicals that can lead to cancer.  Rhubarb’s red colour is an indicator of antioxidant content that are health promoting and disease fighting.  And remember that you don’t have to consume rhubarb cooked.  I remember chewing on stalks as kids right out of the garden, dipping it in sugar- yikes!  Now a days instead of ruining a perfectly healthy vegetable with sugar I juice it raw with a green apple, some spinach and sweeten if need be with a little stevia or a sometimes beet juice. See this post for a few other rhubarb recipes.

A simple way to infuse flavour through a dish is to make a brothy sauce from the rhubarb as I did here in this recipe and poach your veggies in it. Because the rhubarb is quite tart depending on it’s ripeness I add a few drops of stevia to balance the the flavours without making it very sweet.  I also make broths with onion, celery and herbs for another flavour option that can be used for this dish in place of the rhubarb in a pinch.  The addition of the soaked lentils, which cook thru quite quickly, make this more of a main dish but feel free to skip them and just poach veggies to make this more of a side dish.  You can’t go wrong!

As for your veggie selections, if you are anything like me you’ll have quite a variety tossed in the mix.  I find it hard to refrain from adding everything I can get my hands on that is in season to see how it suits the rhubarb flavour.  I even had a few fiddle heads that I couldn’t resist popping in and to my surprise were pretty tasty.  Use as many or as few different veggies as you may to customize your own dish.  Some of my favourites are spring onions, beets, carrots, fava beans and don’t forget to pop in some sliced rhubarb too.

Spring Vegetable Medley Poached with Rhubarb & Lemon Verbena
**alkaline balanced recipe

Yield: Serves 4-6
Do ahead: Soak lentils in 2 cups water, covered, at room temperature for 24 hrs, rinsing after 12 hrs
1/2 cup Puy lentils, soaked & rinsed
2 cups diced rhubarb + 1 more stalk sliced into 1/4 pieces
2 cups water + 1-2  tbsp if needed to blend into liquid
8 small sprigs of lemon thyme  + more for garnish (regular thyme is fine too)
16 verbena leaves + a few more snipped for garnishing
6 to 8 drops liquid stevia
pinch of Himalayan salt
1 bunch baby carrots, halved lengthwise & cut in 2-inch pieces
1 bunch red or white radishes (or a mix), halved if small, quartered if lg
10 small white onions, quartered or 2 leeks, sliced
1 bunch asparagus, cut in 2-inch pieces on the diagonal
12 fresh fiddle heads, optional
1 cup fresh fava beans, shelled, blanched and skins peeled
drizzle of olive oil
finishing sea salt

Method
Place the rhubarb, water, 4 sprigs of lemon thyme, 4 verbena leaves, 6 drops of stevia, and salt in a blender and process. If needed, add 1 -2 more tbsp  water to form slushy  liquid. Balance the tartness further if needed with the stevia for just a faintly sweet yet slightly tart profile, then pour the juice into a glass measuring cup.

Pour two thirds of the rhubarb broth into a sauté pan that has a tight fitting lid. Over medium heat bring the broth to a simmer and immediately begin the poaching by adding the lentils and all the veggies except the fava beans & rhubarb slices. Toss gently and cover with the lid for 3 minutes. Now lift the lid and quickly add rhubarb slices, fava beans, remaining verbena & thyme sprigs and the last of the broth. Replace the lid and poach for 1-2 more minutes without peeking.  Test veggies for doneness, they should be tender but still slightly firm in the middle.  Spoon into serving dishes, add a drizzle of olive oil, a few pinches of finishing sea salt and a sprinkle of snipped verbena leaves and a sprig of lemon thyme. Enjoy.

I hope you are able to get your hands on some rhubarb before the season moves on. Plan B is to look for it in the freezer aisle, you just never know what you might find there.

I’d love to hear what some of your favourite healthy rhubarb recipes are so if you have one up your sleeve leave a comment below.

Have a great week my friend and happy rhubarb hunting:)

Your alkaline sister

Julie