Smooth move, Rhubarb

Planting the haskap so close to the rhubarb was a bad move.  In my defence, Rhubarb did not look long for the world at the time of haskap planting.  Either it would quietly expire or it would be given to a more appreciative guardian.  As it happened, I failed to put the requisite effort toward finding new quarters for the creature.  It rose again on the boulevard this spring and began steadily advancing on the haskap.  What to do?



Some thought had been given to a sign to be posted behind Rhubarb.  Free rhubarb.  Help yourself; we don't eat it.  Enjoy a delicious, healthy snack on us (with down arrow).  Go ahead, stimulate your salivary glands while making a funny face.  Please don't pick the rhubarb - we love its deliciousness.  It was hard to know what might work best to get it picked.  Now I would have to add something to encourage people to take it from the haskap side.  Before I had made a move toward constructing any of these signs, a woman passing by stopped to admire Rhubarb as I was working, ie weeding, on the boulevard.  She told me she enjoys rhubarb in her smoothies.  Really?  A mouth puckering breakfast beverage with stringy bits, I thought, unconvinced.  A few days later it was clear that a stalk or two would have to be removed promptly lest the haskap be crushed or die a slow death of starvation in the shade of Rhubarb's enormous leaves.  I decided to risk my smoothie ingredients.                                                                                                            

Rhubarb smoothie woman had advised me to cook the rhubarb first, which did make sense, but the whole concept was so alien to me that tossing raw stems into the blender would not have seemed a whole lot farther out.  It took a couple of minutes in the microwave oven to get all the bits mushy; did not want a chunky smoothie.  Instead of soaking the chia seeds in water, as usual, I mixed them into the rhubarb mush, which was not becoming any more appetizing.    

Into the blender went vanilla soy milk, plain yogurt (6% milk fat!), half of a banana, and the now thick and pasty rhubarb-chia melange.   Gave it a good long whirr on account of the stringy bits.  When it stopped spinning, I found the colour was not quite to my liking; more than a soupcon of green was peeking through the pink.  Ironically, the solution was found on a haskap bush, though not the one Rhubarb had tried to kill.  (Not entirely sure if that is ironic.)  A few berries from the "Cinderella" haskap provided ample blue pigment to drown out the green.

The flavour was intense and tart, yet did not call for any more sweetening than provided by the banana and soy milk.  I don't know whether I could have identified the flavour if I was in the dark re what had replaced the usual berries.  It was also the thickest smoothie I have produced in my year-long history of smoothie blending.  Contrary to expectations, totally enjoyable.  This is the best use of Rhubarb I have yet found.  The neighbouring haskap should be safe this summer.