Somehow or another I had never made rhubarb bread. It seems an odd omission that needed to be rectified. I suspect it's because I usually use rhubarb in baked goods, and I have a preference for warm baked goods straight out of the oven on a Sunday morning, so I skew toward scones and muffins over quick breads, which generally should be allowed to cool.

This recipe comes from a 1979 tome on baking, written in calendar format. It smacks of its hippy-dippy era, with a noticeable bent toward honey, bran and whole grains, and rustic line drawing illustrations. This clearly is not written in the era of relentlessly photographed recipes. The receipt that has been bookmarking the rhubarb recipe all this time dates to 1992 from the Hungry Mind Bookstore in St. Paul, so clearly a vacation souvenir.

The cookbook is also sometimes a tad loose on the recipe end. This one says to divide the dough between two "small to medium size loaf pans." Um?? I've got three bread pan sizes in my house, but it seemed fairly clear from the baking time that they weren't necessarily thinking of the standard size loaf pans. Also not thinking of the miniest of loaf pan sizes. I opted for three of the regular minis but should have gone for four since it overflowed a bit so now I've got a mess on the oven floor. They must have had something else in mind entirely that's lost to the ages and 1970s Vermont.  

Rhubarb bread

From Garden Way Publishing’s “Bread Book: A Baker’s Almanac,” by Ellen Foscue Johnson. Now I just want time off to cook my way through the rest of the year. 

Ingredients

2½ cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon ginger
½ cup melted butter, slightly cooled
1 cup honey
½ cup orange juice (or pineapple)
1 beaten egg
1½ cups chopped raw rhubarb
¾ cup chopped nuts

Method

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease four mini bread pans. (See discussion above about size.)

Whisk together flour, baking powder, soda, salt and ginger in a medium bowl. Set aside.

Combine butter, honey, orange juice and egg in a large bowl. Stir in rhubarb and nuts. Stir in dry ingredients until just wet through. Divide among pans and bake. I found the small loaf pans took about 30 minutes until top is springy.

Rating: Delightful. Wonderful flavor and texture; perfectly moist. It comes together quite quickly, so it's a fast fix if you don't count cleaning up the oven if you guess wrong on pan size. Works fine served at room temperature. And now I don't have to go down the hill to get bread for breakfast.

Drink and a nosh: Rhubarb gin and tonic, smoked fish horseradish dill dip

I was looking for more ways to preserve rhubarb for a lingering taste of spring. This puts a splash of spring flavor in a summer drink.

Rhubarb gin and tonic

From “True North Cabin Cookbook” by Stephanie Hansen. This book very much transports you to whatever location you usually call The Lake, whether it's for one week a year, like us, or a family dwelling that seemingly has a built-in homing device, like hers. It has as much of a sense of place as any cookbook that specializes in the cuisine of a particular region. I smell pine and hear loons. 

(The first time we ever heard a loon call was when we were novice campers trying out our cook stove for the first time at Mille Lacs Kathio long before we even moved to Minnesota. It was pouring rain and we seemed to be the only foolhardy campers around, but yet we heard laughter at our inept attempts at lighting the stove, and we really did not appreciate it. Never actually saw that loon. Maybe it was smart enough to be out of the rain.)

Ingredients

2 ounces gin
2 tablespoons rhubarb syrup
Tonic water
Ice

Method

Fill a glass with ice. Add gin, rhubarb syrup and fill with tonic water.

Rhubarb syrup

4 cups chopped rhubarb
1 cup sugar
1 cup water

Method

Combine rhubarb, sugar and water in a heavy large pan. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for about 15 minutes or until fruit is soft. Press through a strainer. (The recipe suggests saving the solids for use as a bread spread; it makes a subtle but nice jam on toast.) Chill before using. Makes just shy of 2 cups, so enough for weekend houseguest levels or a small dinner party.

Rating: While technically I didn't need to be in the market for another rhubarb drink, given that the rhubarb martini batch cocktail is heavenly, it's always good to branch out. I was worried this one might be too sweetish, but it actually has some tartness to it. Just really refreshing, and pink! Would definitely not mind pulling that out of the cooler at the cabin. A perfectly viable use of rhubarb that will last past the pick-by-July-4th dictum. Well, if you don't share with others, in which case it won't last that long.

To pair with it, I opted to make another recipe from the same book, both being things that seem northish. Plus we'd brought back a couple kinds of smoked fish from the Fisherman's Daughter on a recent trip north.

Smoked whitefish spread

From “True North Cabin Cookbook"  by Stephanie Hansen

Ingredients

8 ounces smoked whitefish or smoked lake trout (or salmon), skin and bones removed
½ cup cream cheese, softened
¼ cup sour cream
¼ cup Greek yogurt
1 tablespoon prepared horseradish
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon minced red onion
1 tablespoon chopped dill
Juice of ½ lemon
Chopped green onions or chives for garnish

Method

Combine smoked fish, cream cheese, sour cream, yogurt, horseradish, mustard, dill and lemon juice in the bowl of a food processor and pulse until well mixed. Garnish with green onions or chives.

Rating: Fine. Slightly better the next day after the flavors had time to meld. It's pretty mild. If I make it again I might up the horseradish quotient a tad, or more onion, something to kick up the flavor quotient a bit. But if you make it as is, it's perfectly serviceable and won't offend any timid tasters. Would be easy to make in advance for toting to a cabin in the cooler.

To play along: Wesley Stace's "Late Style," a good backgrounder if you're up North looking at a lake view through the lens of relaxation. We saw him open for Loudon Wainwright III on a recent tour and enjoyed it quite a bit.