Nutty Rhubarb Coleslaw

I've been mulling over the idea of using rhubarb in non-desserts for the past couple of weeks. As I have so much tender, young rhubarb right now, I wanted to offset some of the other ingredients that I have to purchase by adding rhubarb in their place. The idea of coleslaw sounded promising, and I still have a couple of heads of cabbage from my purchase in mid-March. I tried it for my own lunch and was so impressed that I decided to make a large batch for our family dinner. This salad received a huge thumbs up from my family members.

A few things to keep in mind:

• use tender, crisp young stalks. Thin stalks seemed to work well for me. Older, thicker stalks may be too stringy to slice thin.
• I used the slicing blade on my food processor. A mandolin would also work very well. Basically, you want very thin slices. With my food processor, I had less of a stringy mess at the end if I didn't use the pusher that forces the stalks through the feed tube. I just allowed the stalks to "fall" through the tube, then picked out the larger chunks after slicing.
• Which brings me to this, you'll want to pick out any large pieces that didn't slice into nice thin bit. You can chop this and freeze to add to a batch of rhubarb sauce, or just compost it if you have plenty of rhubarb growing right now.

Ingredients:

thinly sliced spring rhubarb

chopped, toasted almonds

shredded cabbage

dressing:

mayonnaise

vinegar

salt

sugar

Now this is as close to a recipe as I have, for now. Use about 1 part rhubarb, 2/3 part chopped, toasted almonds, 5 to 6 parts shredded cabbage. Toss with a dressing of mayonnaise mixed with a dash of vinegar, pinch of salt, and one or two spoonfuls of granulated sugar. This should be a sweet, creamy dressing.

Rhubarb and ginger are natural a natural pair. A bit of diced, crystallized ginger would be a wonderful addition to this salad.