The perfect poached bah bah rhubbarb

It’s spring and to get a spring in YOUR step this month hurry up and get on with poaching some rhubbard!

Ask your friends and family for some and enquire if your neighbours have an excess of rhubbard growing in their garden they wish to get rid of. People usually do as rhubbard grows like silverbeet-en masse!

Perfect with your cereal each morning or serve as a delish dessert with your meal in the evening!

The Pefect Poached Rhubbard – Telegraph UK, by Xanthe Someone
"It’s worth knowing how to cook rhubarb so that the pieces stay whole, rather than collapsing into a stringy mush.

"I’ve given an oven temperature here, but it’s satisfyingly thrifty and green to use the residual heat of the oven after roasting a joint or baking cakes.
Just prepare it as below and pop the covered roasting tin in the newly turned off, but still hot, oven. Check after fifteen minutes and give it another five or ten minutes if necessary.
Seasonal produce is the key to keeping costs low and quality high in anyone’s kitchen."

Ingredients:

450g rhubarb
110g caster sugar

Method:

Preheat the oven to 325F/160C/gas mark 3.
Trim the leaves from the rhubarb and wash the stems, then dry them and cut into short lengths. Arrange in a roasting tin just big enough to take them in a single layer. Dredge with the sugar and cover with a lid or foil.
Bake for fifteen minutes and remove from the oven. (This timing is for rhubarb up to broom handle thick. Very thick stems may need another five or ten minutes). The rhubarb will still be slightly “al dente” but bathed in pink syrup.
Leave until cool, still covered, by which time the rhubarb will be perfectly soft

Pub Quiz Pastitsio (Greek lasagne)

I made Pastitsio the first time at my flat in Home Street, Point Chev. when I was reminded of this easy dish again at my regular Monday pub quiz the other day.
It's easier than making Shepherd's Pie and Italian lasagna.


Ingredients:
500g mince
Can of shopped tomatoes
Half an onion
1 clove of garlic
1 c Tasty cheese (Pams)
Milk (Long life or fresh will do)
Flour (Home Brand)
Knob of margarine or butter (Flora)
Pinch of nutmeg
Pinch cinnamon
2 1.2 cups of Fusilli or Penne style pasta (Budget)
Salt and pepper (In this instance I used Kelp pepper)
Boiled water 4 white sauce


Method:
Finely chop onion and garlic. Add olive oil/fat/marg/butter, add onions, garlic and mince. Cook until the mince is done. Add can of chopped tomatoes, pinches of nutmeg, cinnamon, salt and pepper to season. Set aside.
Boil water and cook pasta. While the pasta is cooking make a "roux" for the white sauce. To do this, melt the knob of butter then add enough flour for the fat to soak up all of the fat and turns into a clump. Gradually add half milk and half water to obtain the sauce's thickness that you desire. Make sure you stir right throughout to make a smooth and lumpless sauce.

Butter an oven dish, In this instance I used Pam's cranola spray.

Cheese rolls - Southland sushi

A cheese roll is a variation of cheese on toast, mouse trap, croute au fromage de Savoyarde, Welsh rarebit ... but created covering a slice of bread with a prepared filling made of grated cheese and onion soup mix before rolling it up into a tube and toasting it.

The cheese roll is very popular in southern New Zealand. Found in most dairies, cafes and a staple of smoko and morning teas in and around Southland, the cheese roll has become known to the modern locals and travellers as Southland sushi.

Ingredients:

2 cup Homebrand tasty cheese
Sachet of Maggi onion soup
6 slices Homebrand loaf of bread
Margerine or butter
1 cup hot water

Method:

Turn oven on to 150 degrees. Mix sachet of onion soup, grated cheese and hot water into a soggy paste. Butter the sice of the slice that is going to be on the outside. Add a dollop at the top of the slice and spread across.

Roll up the slice into a roll and place on a baking tray. Repeat until all the paste is used and pop into the oven until the outside has become crispy light golden brown.