More Rhubarb Recipes

Rhubarb Lime Muffins
(makes 24)

- 2 1/2 cups flour
- 3/4 cups brown sugar
- 3/4 cup demerara sugar
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon cardamom
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 egg, beaten
- 1 cup nonfat plain yogurt
- 2/3 cup canola oil
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- juice from one lime
- rhubarb pulp

Topping:
- 1/2 cup demerara sugar
- 2 tablespoons melted butter/margarine
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon

1. preheat oven to 375 F
2. make topping first
3. then combine dry ingredients. in a separate bowl, combine wet ingredients except rhubarb
4. pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients, fold in rhubarb
5. put in greased muffin pans, top with sugar mixture
6. place muffin pans on cookie sheets so that the bottoms/sides don't overcook
7. cook for about 18 minutes



I came up with this recipe using this one--this is usually how I come up with my own recipes. I look at a recipe and say, hmm I can make this better. Or, oh man, I don't have enough brown sugar left. Any I have all these limes I need to use. Anyway, I'm not a big muffin/cupcake person because usually they are dry and mediocre if not eaten straight from the oven. Not so with these. They were the best muffins I have ever made or tasted. The flavors were right on (Mark: "yum, did you put cardamom in these?") and they were perfectly cooked: not raw, completely cooked, not a dry speck on the muffin. They weren't fluffy, which is why I directed to make the topping first so that you don't loose all that leavening if you wait til the end to make it. But otherwise they were delicious. Also, I pulled them out will they still looked a little goopy on top--they will continue cooking in the pan...

Rhubarb Ice Cream
- 1 1/2 to 2 cups rhubarb juice
- 1-2 cups whole milk

Pour ingredients into ice cream maker. The end.

Next time I make this ice cream, I will use more rhubarb juice and less milk (2 cups juice to 1 cup milk). It had a nice, subtle rhuby flavor but I wanted more. Also, if you use heavy cream instead of whole milk, it will refreeze much better. But you don't have to add any additional sugar. Perhaps juice from 1 lime would work well too...

Cardamom
this stuff is really expensive. sometimes. at the store I usually shop at, it is like 20 bucks! but I found a large jar (as opposed to the tiny 2 oz ones) at Whole Foods for 4 bucks. sweet deal!

What to do with Rhubarb

You can't find rhubarb at just any grocery store here in Cleveland. It's taken me 3 years to learn that I have to get it at the farmer's market in season if I want it. The great thing about rhubarb is that it freezes well. So now, every Saturday, I have a date with the farmer's market so I can pick up 2 or 3 bunches--I'm going to need a bigger freezer!!

- Prepping rhubarb for freezer: cut rhubarb into 1-inch pieces and place in a freezer bag. (easy!)



While thumbing through my family cookbook that my mom put together for me one year, I discovered a fun way to get more bang for your buck.

Rhubarb Juice
- put 4 cups of chopped rhubarb into a sauce pan with 2 cups water and 2 cups sugar. Cook until the rhubarb is tender (keep an eye on it so it doesn't boil over!)
- Place a strainer on a bowl (I use a glass 4-cup measuring cup) and pour rhubarb into strainer
- DO NOT PRESS PULP in the strainer



- Reserve the liquid. One option is to pour the liquid into clean ice cube trays and freeze.
- Use rhubarb pulp for pie filling--it's already cooked and sweetened so you can reduce cooking time and your pie will not be runny!





Rhubarb Mint Mocktails
- Plop 4 or 5 frozen rhubarb cubes (see above) into a glass
- Add chilled ginger ale
- Add a sprig of mint


(really wishing I had some cute little cocktail glasses! Don't mind my son's fingers, he was anxious to try some.)


Cardamom Strawberry and Rhubarb Crumble (this is tweaked a bit from smitten kitchen, but credit goes to her for the original recipe!)


(smitten kitchen take 100 bajillion times better food photos than I do. Even so, this pie was amazing and the cardamom makes it really awesome!)


Filling:
- Cooked rhubarb pulp (see above)
- A bunch of strawberries (1 quart maybe???), de-stemmed and sliced (I don't remember how much I actually used because I bought my berries in bulk from costco and we ate most of them before I decided to make pie)
- 1 teaspoon cardamom
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/4 cup lime juice (you could use lemon)
- 3 tablespoons cornstarch
- Pinch of salt

Topping:
- 1 1/3 cup whole wheat flour (you can't even tell. I used this because our white flour bucket was empty and I was too lazy to go down to the basement to fill it up)
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 cup chopped walnuts
- 3 tablespoons sugar
- 3 tablespoons demerara sugar (don't skip this step if possible, I love the texture of this!)
- 1 stick melted butter

Directions:
1. preheat oven to 375. mix together filling and put in a pie dish.
2. Combine die ingredients for topping, add melted butter and mix together until you get crumbles
3. Cover filling with crumble. Place pie dish on a foil-lined baking dish so you don't get sticky juice dripping down onto the bottom of your oven. bake for 25-30 minutes or until topping looks golden brown.
4. enjoy with ice cream :)

Tomorrow, I will be making Rhubarb Ice Cream with my rhubarb juice. I'll post the recipe once I come up with it--especially if it's a success!