Sunday, July 22, 2012

Rhubarb


Oh my gosh! Where does time go by… I really would love to be able to write and post more often…. Time just seems to go on with or without you. I also need to recognized once May come around I really do not have much time to just sit in front of a computer and type. Garden Season starts and Market Season starts in May the two motivators in why I wanted to start this blog….oh but they keep me so busy. Let’s see…. The community garden is going well… everything is planted and looks great. Families have been harvesting lettuce and rhubarb during June. I decided in the winter I was going to play a little bit more with rhubarb and learn to embrace it. I think people seem to love it or hate and because it bitter taste and some people seem turn their nose up at it. I am guessing that might come from a bad childhood experience. I do not have much of a childhood memory of rhubarb, but I guess my Grandpa use to grow it and my Grandma use to bake pies with it. I do hope to grow it one day too. So this was the year for me to embrace and well, I did. This growing season I made rhubarb crunch, rhubarb and apple sauce and the rhubarb coffee cake. The crunch was pretty good but when I made the other two items… it took a back seat. The sauce turned out pretty good, I was making the sauce while I was cleaning out the fridge and I had two apples that had been in there a while so I decided to put them in the sauce and boy did that turn out to be a little treat. Now the coffee cake I just love … I have make a few times and let a bunch of people try and everyone just seems to love it. Here are some interesting facts about the fruit. Rhubarb was considered to be a vegetable until 1947 when a New York court decided it was a fruit for the purpose of regulations and duties. When growing rhubarb it is important that you cut the flowers off the plant to make sure the energy stays in the stalks. The stalks are what you harvest from the plant and they can be red and green. It is important to take the leaves off the stalk because they are considered to be toxic.  




Rhubarb Sour Cream Coffee Cake
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 13X9 pan
Topping:
½ cup white sugar
1 tablespoon melted butter
½ cup chopped walnuts
1teaspoon on cinnamon
Melt butter, mixed butter, sugar, cinnamon and nuts in a separate bowl. Set aside.
Cake ingredients:
1 ½ cups packed brown sugar
½ cup of butter
1 egg
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon salt
2 cups of flour
1 cup of sour cream
1 ½ cups of rhubarb- cut into ½ inch pieces
Cream butter and brown sugar together, add egg. Add the rest of the dry ingredients. Mixed sour cream and then add rhubarb. Mix well and pour batter in greased cake pan. Then spread topping on top of the batter.
Bake for 45- 50 minutes, let cool and serve.

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