People who grow hard-to-use veggies should only give them away cooked and ready to eat!

[CoalTit]

I'm in the southern hemisphere and I've received a great big bunch of rhubarb to take home after a family get-together. I said it was too much to take home on the train, but then a relative turned up at my house with it a couple of days later.
I do like rhubarb, in small quantities, with apple and custard, but I'm going to be buying and stewing fruit all winter to use this lot up. No-one else wanted it because it's horrible by itself.
I feel indignant.
I'm always grateful to be given pumpkin, but I met someone who says she accepts pumpkin to be polite, then throws it away because it's too much trouble to peel and cook.
And then there are the zucchini/courgettes that have got enormous and woody because people plant too many plants then don't pick them while they're still nice to eat
AIBU?

Have you tried roasting honey drizzled rhubarb with your chicken? Or chucked into a stew? It’s good, you don’t need much just cut up one or two stalks, and add to the roasting pan or stew. It adds flavour to the gravy, if you make your own gravy using the juice from the chicken pan.

My ex FIL used to grow broad beans every year but not pick them till they were about a foot long. We used to get given carrier bags full of the damned stringy, tasteless things. I put them in the bin.

Rhubarb is lush on its own, or in cake.

My FIL used to ask us to bring back my dad’s rhubard on the place and ferry - seriously embarrassed bringing it through a scanner - whenever he arrives with a giant bag of it the neighbours all ask for a bit. Apparently it is particularly lovely on account of all the horse poo he puts on it lol (I don’t like rhubard). My mum stews loads and freezes some of the stew, then defrosts it when needed and adds oats to make crumbles. She also freezes it chopped into little bags and will just stew that when she runs out.

She has tons of apple trees, my dad does too but he is quite rural. When he arrives with bags of apples she has too many to give away to friends so she Whatsapps a neighbourhood group and leaves them out the front for people to help themselves. Her fruit trees keep reproducing so she is also digging up little plum, cherry, hazelnut and apple trees and having to find new homes for them! I am lazy for extreme cooking and freezing so when I lived near my dad and he would drop bags of fruit and veg on my doorstep, including ginormous sacks of potatoes, I would bring the excess to work or ask the neighbours. People are always delighted, especially with the cost of living crisis. Ignore anyone saying to throw it away, put it out the front with a sign or find a community pantry!

I vividly remember as a child, one year my mom managed to get a massive yield of courgette on her allotment. Even after donating to friends/neughbours we were eating that stuff for months! My dad had the task of coming up with evermore creative ways to use them up (he did most of the cooking and my parents hated wasting food). Stuffed & baked courgette with masses of cheese was amazing! 😍🥒 I'm surprised we weren't put off them for life though 😂

Rhubarb is one of the easiest things to prepare - way easier than pumpkins anyway! You just chop it up with no peeling or anything, it’s easy to chop, takes just a couple of minutes to do a huge bunch. If you don’t want it, offer to neighbours or bin it. It’s not horrible by itself either! (Though you do need sugar with it).

I certainly wouldn’t want people to pre prepare fruit and veg if they’re offering it to me - how would they know how I want it done? And it doesn’t keep as easily if someone’s offering you a load of chopped pumpkin over a whole one, for instance.

Just say no if you don’t want it, or give it away.

Add sultanas to any rhubarb dish as they make it much nicer.

If you like carrot cake try courgette cake with cream cheese frosting.
My husband doesn't like courgette but loves the cske

These are delicious for using up courgettes/zucchini: https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/courgette-brownies

@ERthree I always add candied ginger to rhubarb to give it a zing. Never tried sultanas but I'm adding that to my list too. 😋

Yes, I enjoy it sliced and lightly cooked in Zibibbo (a sweet sparkling wine). Can then be served on its own or with a little cream, ice cream or frozen yoghurt.

Make a rhubarb syrup
store it until summer
have with ice, fizzy water

My dad has an allotment I’m grateful for onions, leeks, potatoes, carrots as I have lots of use for them. Less fussed for berries (I found maggots in them 🤮) and cooking apples as I’m not really a baker.

loved raw rubarb as a child dipped in sugar

I recently had a goats cheese with rhubarb chutney toast sandwich.
the chutney so absolutely delicious, and I cannot wait to make is for myself.
here is a recipe I’mnplanning to make this version but other are available.
www.recipesmadeeasy.co.uk/mr-bs-award-winning-rhubarb-chutney/

Rhubarb crumble ? plus you can chop it, blanch it and freeze it ? Big courgettes can be grated and put into cake mix , you can't taste it but it helps keep a sponge moist.

To be fair, it’s far better if you do peel it. Although the paper thin skin comes off in long strips so peeling is very easy.

If you are the grower it's hard to know how good the crop will be from one year to the next. You put in say 5 courgette plants one year, it's a terrible summer and you get hardly any fruit. So you put in 10 plants the next year and are inundated, we don't intend to grow far too much. For most people the size of the plot dictates and you can't even put in everything you would like to grow. As said if you can't use everything either bin it or pass some on to some of your neighbours they may be grateful if you aren't. My DH usually takes any excess into work and someone usually wants it, stuffed marrow seems to be popular with some people there when we get overgrown (hiding) courgettes.

Well this is a bit off topic but when it comes to butternut squash and pumpkins, I discovered a simple trick to make them easier to peel! Just poke holes in the vegetable with a sharp knife and then microwave it for 3 minutes. Then let it cool down before peeling! 🎃

I just remembered when we were young we used to eat sticks of rhubarb straight off the plants with no sugar. An acquired taste I think!

Give it to neighbours and friends asap. Freeze bags of it raw ready for cooking in future.
At worst, compost.

I'd love some rhubarb. I miss it since I emigrated.

Easiest way to cook pumpkin is to cut it in half, then put it cut side down in a baking tray of water and cook for 30 or 40 minutes in the oven. Then you can easily scoop out the seeds then the flesh to make soup or anything that needs pulp. Saves a lot of effort.

We used to go round to my granddad's allotment armed with paper bags of sugar. Cut stems, rinse under standpipe then dip into sugar and eat until your tummy ached!

Well OP, I have to say that I’m very jealous. I love rhubarb so much and have been buying as much of it as I can when I’ve seen it in the supermarkets recently. I end up stewing it and then freezing it in small portions, and then I have it for breakfast with Greek yoghurt and granola. It’s so delicious. But yeah, I do get you…my mum keeps growing excessive amounts of broad beans and courgettes, and then dumping them on me because she has too many. I like courgettes but not all the time, and I hate broad beans. I always say no to broad beans, and I take some courgettes but it falls on deaf ears and I’ll find a bag of them left on my doorstep!

We did that as well. Our neighbour would hand all us kids a stick of rhubarb each and we’d nibble our way through it even though they were pretty sour. I think it was the novelty of being handed something picked straight from the garden. Lovely memories.

And it freezes I tray freeze in 1 inch bits then shake into a bag and we have rhubarb and porridge in the winter. It also makes an amazing quick side for smoked mackerel. I have loads of excess fruit and veg and I put it on a table on the drive and the neighbours help themselves.

It’s free food. Find a way to use it if give it away to someone who can.