These rhubarb muffins are a recipe from an old workmate when I worked at a natural food store in wolfville. They are very moist and have always worked out for me (except the time I forgot to add the sugar). I've made them with all different berries in season, but until now have only made them with unbleached white flour. With the addition of the hard red whole grain wheat flour from Longspell, they were nuttier, a little more like a bran muffin, without the bran texture. Sweet, but not too sweet, and the perfect amount of tart with the rhubarb. We had a lot of extra rhubarb this spring and I froze rhubarb in 1 1/2 cup bags for the exact purpose of making these muffins all winter. Nathan, my partner, is a carpenter and so i tend to bake quite a bit. Oatmeal cookies, with a little of everything added in, and muffins mostly. I may next time try and bump the whole wheat flour even more, maybe 1 3/4 cup w.w and 1/4 unbleached white. For the yogurt, I've substituted milk, coconut milk, pretty much any white liquid that I happen to have in the fridge. The coconut milk I used in this batch, was completely seperated, but still tasted sweet, and it worked out just fine. I've long ago stopped buying paper muffin cups since I always have parchment paper on hand. I cut them into squares push them into place and add the batter. I find they can be reused at least two times, the muffins don't look perfect but I think they have their own charm.
Dry Indredients
2 cups flour (1 1/2 cups Longspell hard red and 1/2 cup speerville organic unbleached)
3/4 cup sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 Tbsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
Wet Ingredients
1 cup yogurt
1/2 cup butter
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cup rhubarb
sugar and cinnamon for sprinkling
-Mix the dry ingredients in a medium bowl
-Whisk together the wet ingredients
-Add the wet to the dry and stir to combine (with the least strokes as possible)
-Add the rhubarb (or blueberries, raspberries, etc)
First step to make this meal is to cut your spaghetti squash in half, scoop out the insides and put it in the oven at 350F. I put it in cut side up, that way the juice of the squash stays in and it doesn't dry out.
Second step is to make the sauce. Since I'm usually just thinking of supper on my way home I tend to cook ground beef from frozen (whole chickens roast really well from frozen as well in about three hours at 350F, and in my opinion, they seem to stay more moist that way).
I cut up an onion and some garlic, saute it in some olive oil. Grate about a half cup of celeriac and carrot, then add that. Add a pound of ground beef, frozen or not, if frozen I put the cover on and keep truning the beef and scraping off the cooked bits till it's all cooked. Then add a jar of tomotoes (that conviently were in the shares last week). Add salt, papper, sage, thyme, basil, cumin, and whatever spices you like. Cover that and simmer for a half hour or more.
When the squash is ready, scoop it out onto plates, top with sauce and some grated cheese. Searve with something nice to drink and there you go.
Cabbage Leaves Lasagna
I had extra sauce and I made a cabbage lasagna.
I steamed some cabbage leaves, and layered them like this:
-Cabbage leaves
-Sauce
-Cabbage leaves
-A mixture of cottage cheese, an egg, and some mozerella.
-Sauce
-Steamed spinach or swiss chard (I had some frozen steamed swiss chard (stems removed) in the freezer and it tastes just like spinach)
-Cabbage leaves
-Sauce and cheese
Baked at 375F until the cheese is bubbly, about a half hour or more. Yumm.
Tim enjoyed the first work-free Saturday in months as deliveries were cancelled into the city this past Saturday. Here's a photo of his bacon-wrapped rabbit with roasted vegetables, homemade bread, Helen's rhubarb spread, and Tideview Pear Cider:
For the cabbage and carrot stir-fry, I cut up about 1/4 head of cabbage, about 6 carrots, 2 shallots. I sauteed them for quite a while in about 3 T soy sauce, a bit of oil and a big dollop of that crazy delicious sweet chili sauce (the one with all the Indian writing on the bottle and English translation that proclaims SWEET CHILLI SAUCE FOR CHICKEN). I cooked some asian noodles and added them in for the last 5 minutes. Probably not the healthiest way to enjoy cabbage, but man, was it good!
The celeriac was an entire celeriac, peeled and cut into large chunks, 2 meduim potatoes peeled and cut, cooked until soft (I was lazy and cooked them together; if you want to get specific, the celeriac needs less time than the spuds), mashed with butter, salt, and pepper.
Made for a weird combination for dinner, but it was really good, so Jon didn't question my east-meets-west theme!
Funny story about celeriac this week: I arrived on Monday to a phone message from a gentleman who had picked up a friends' share on the weekend, and was really excited to enjoy all the veggies, but couldn't figure out what the "round white thing" was, and proceeded to go through a list of what it wasn't... and what it might be, as he emphasized how excited he was to eat it! I love when people are excited to try new veggies.
I made breakfast-for-dinner the other night, but was out of potatoes and really wanted some sort of cubed starchy vegetable. I've been chiselling away at an enormous rutabaga in the fridge for over a week, so I hacked off another chunk, cubed it, steamed it for 5 minutes, and sauteed it in a tablespoon of butter, 2 tablespoons of honey, and a sprinkle of cinnamon. Here's the end result:
Last weekend-- inspired by a post on the TapRoot facebook page-- I made chocolate beet cake. The recipe is from the "Simply in Season" cookbook that we sell at the farm.
Because it calls for cooked beets, it turns into this decadent, heavy, delicious moist cake, and you'd never know there was a beet anywhere near it. This is the gorgeous batter before it was baked:
And then after (and my oven, which has a penchant for burning things, actually behaved):
And finally, the cake topped with stewed rhubarb... Mmmm! Would be great with cooked frozen strawberries, too!
Here's the recipe:
2 cups beets (cooked, peeled, and chopped)
1/2 cup Applesauce
Puree in blender until smooth. Set aside.
1-1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup plain yogurt
3 eggs
Combine in large mixing bowl. Beat with electric mixer 2 minutes.
1/2 cup baking cocoa (sifted)
1-1/2 tsp vanilla
Add along with pureed beets; beat another 90 seconds.
1-1/2 cups flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1-1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
Gradually sift into the batter, mixing with a spoon but stirring only until blended.
1/2 cup chocolate chips and/or nuts (chopped)
Stir in. Pour into greased 9 x 13 inch baking pan. Bake in preheated oven at 350*F until knife inserted in centre comes out clean, 40-50 minutes.
