Rhubarb buttermilk coffee cake

This recipe had everything going for it in my opinion: rhubarb, buttermilk, lots of butter and a cobbler type topping.

But I'll save the recipe for another day, when I've taken another stab at it. I made it as written from a blogger who adapted it from Mollie Katzen. This blog post is really just a reminder to myself to revisit it another day to see if I can make it into something worth repeating. It made a nice moist cake for Sunday breakfast, but it didn't have quite the tang I usually associate with buttermilk, and the most criminal part of all: You really can't taste the rhubarb, so what really is the point?

I guess if I loved every new recipe I tried, I'd run out of time in my life to repeat them.

Drink & a nosh: Rhubarb martini, and roasted garlic-chive dip

It's the time of year where rhubarb creeps into everything. This recipe calls for Yorkshire rhubarb, but not being from, or anywhere near Yorkshire, that's clearly not an option. But nice spring Minnesota rhubarb seems to work just fine. You definitely have to plan ahead for this recipe.

Rhubarb martini

Adapted from “Cooking for Friends” by Terry Edwards and George Craig

Ingredients

1½ pounds rhubarb, cut into 1-inch pieces

¼ cup Grenadine

1 cup sugar

1¼ cup water

2½ cups vodka

Egg whites (1/2 an egg white per serving, so about 5 egg whites overall)

Method

Combine rhubarb, Grenadine, sugar, water and vodka in a 2-quart container. Cover tightly and let steep for at least four days, shaking vigorously once a day.

Drain through a fine sieve. Chill liquid. (I saved the rhubarb to make a crisp; I just added a bit less sugar than usual and didn’t bake it quite as long.)

Combine 3 ounces chilled rhubarb vodka with half an egg white in a shaker with ice. Shake well and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

Rating: Delightful. I had been somewhat doubtful about whether the egg white was necessary, but it made it a wonderfully frothy pink confection. The rhubarb definitely comes through, with a nice balance between tart and sweet. It makes enough for roughly 10, so it’s a good crowd cocktail, especially since it’s not super high alcohol, being by definition watered-down vodka. Definitely worth making an annual spring ritual.

I tried a glass without the egg white; it's less frothy fun, but the flavors are more intense. I'd say it works either way, so if for some reason you can't have eggs, it still works.

 Garlic and chive dip
Adapted from Martha Stewart Living Everyday Food, April 2010

Ingredients
½ cup roasted garlic
1 cup Greek yogurt
1 cup sour cream
Up to 3 tablespoons milk
3 tablespoons chopped fresh chives, plus more for garnish
Fresh veggies for dipping

Method
Puree roasted garlic in a food processor. Add yogurt and sour cream and blend. Add milk as needed to reach desired consistency; I found I only needed ½ tablespoon. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Stir in 3 tablespoons chives. Garnish with more chopped chives and serve with veggies to dip.

Rating: Fine enough. Very light texture. The roasted garlic isn't overwhelming. My first take was that the recipe was worth trying, at any rate, but perhaps not repeating, at least without some slight doctoring to punch up the flavor somehow. But when I had some more later, the flavors had time to blend more. I'd suggest making this one ahead for best results.

Play along: “When You Wish Upon a Star” by Bill Frisell, available streaming for Amazon Prime members.

Rhubarb scones

This morning while lingering over tea, a plate of scones and the Sunday paper, I was brought to pondering coffee house scones and why we eat them. For me, each time I break down and buy one, I am reminded why I really shouldn't (calories and cost aside). They're tasty-ish, but not fantastic, and their texture often seems designed more for durability than edibility. I guess each time there's some vague hope that this time it will be really good, like a real hot scone straight from your oven. This recipe originally called for letting the scones cool completely on a rack. Are you nuts? That gives up half of their appeal and you might as well be eating a coffee house scone.

Now to see if I can make it through a summer with enough resolve to bypass the Thursday morning farmers market baked goods stand that I walk by on the way to my office. I know they aren't that great. I know that. No really. It's just like an outdoor coffee house.

These, however, are lovely.

Rhubarb vanilla scones

Adapted from baketotheroots.de

 

Ingredients

1¼ cups chopped fresh rhubarb

1 tablespoon plus ¼ cup sugar, divided

2 cups flour

2¼ teaspoons baking powder

¼ teaspoon salt

Zest of 1 orange

1/3 cup cold butter, cut into small pieces

¾ cup heavy cream

1 large egg

1¼ teaspoons vanilla extract, divided

½ cup sifted powdered sugar

½ to 1 tablespoon milk 

Method

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Preheat oven to 390 degrees. (This being a recipe from a German site, that's the translation for 200 C. My old Jenn-Air stove doesn't let me calibrate the temperature to quite that degree, so I just set it slightly below the 400 mark and it seemed to work out fine.)

Toss rhubarb pieces with 1 tablespoon of sugar and set aside.

In a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, ¼ cup sugar, salt and orange zest. Add the butter and mix in with a pastry blender or two table knives until the mixture is crumbly. 

Mix together the cream, 1 teaspoon vanilla and the egg. Mix into dry ingredients using a wooden spoon until well combined. Fold in rhubarb.

Transfer mixture to a lightly floured board. Flatten into a disk about 1-inch thick. Cut into 8 triangles. (A dough scraper is the perfect tool for both transferring the dough to the board and then cutting it into wedges.)

Transfer wedges to baking sheet and bake for 15 to 18 minutes until golden.

Whisk together powdered sugar, remaining ¼ teaspoon vanilla and just enough milk to make desired glaze consistency. Drizzle over warm scones. (Note, this is half the glaze amount the original recipe called for, but I thought it made plenty.) And jolly well eat them while they're warm, or reheat them later.

Rating: Very nice indeed. Good rhubarb flavor, a hint of orange and a very nice texture: not too crumbly, but not cakelike either. Very light. I've made some rhubarb scones before, but these definitely have the edge, and will become an annual way to use some rhubarb.

Extra! Extra!

After another relentless day of gardening, time to crack open one of Fulton Brewing's commemorative Star Tribune Extra! Extra! brews, on sale at local liquor stores now while supplies last in honor of the Strib's 150th anniversary. The Star Tribune print edition is on sale at newsstands now, while supplies and interest continues. Here's to another 150 years of delivering the news you need to know.

Feta radish quiche

We have heaven's own supply of dill that's volunteering even more readily than a Lutheran at a Habitat for Humanity site. It's nearly crowding out the volunteer mustard seedlings. Really miss the plant swap so I could pass along the largesse rather than just ripping it out. At any rate, when I see any recipe that calls for dill, it goes into the possibilities file.

Feta radish quiche

From Better Homes & Gardens, April 2017

Ingredients

1 unbaked 9-inch pie crust, however you prefer to achieve that

6 ounces of radishes, very thinly sliced

5 eggs

1½ cup milk

2 ounces crumbled feta

1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill

¼ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon pepper

Method

Preheat oven to 450. Place pie crust in a 9-inch pie plate and crimp the edges. Line with a double thickness of tin foil, loosely covering the edges as well. Bake for 8 minutes. Remove tin foil and bake until crust is set, another 4 to 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, combine eggs, milk, feta, dill, salt and pepper.

Remove pie crust from oven. Reduce heat to 350 degrees. Place radishes in layered circles around the bottom of the quiche. Pour in filling and bake for 40 to 45 minutes or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. I recommend using a pie guard or wrapping tin foil around the crust edges. I did and mine still got darker than I’d like.

Rating: Interesting texture compared to most other quiches I've made, probably because of the feta. It sets up into a custard just fine, but somehow it remains more scrambly-ricotta curdish in consistency. That's not a complaint, just an observation. Flavorwise, it was fine. The radishes become pretty mellow when baked. That's pretty much what this quiche is overall: Fine and mellow. Nothing wrong with it, but nothing to make me move it into the keeper pile. But it made an undetectable dent in the dill supply.

 

Curried chickpea spread sandwiches

 

Chickpea curry salad sandwiches

Adapted slightly from Parade magazine

Ingredients

3 tablespoons mayonnaise

½ tablespoon curry

¼ teaspoon chili powder

1 teaspoon lemon juice

Salt and pepper to taste

1 (15-ounce) can chickpeas, drained

1 tablespoon chopped pecans

1½ tablespoons golden raisins

1 green onion, minced

1 celery stalk, minced

Sliced red onion

Pea shoots (optional)

Lettuce leaves

Whole wheat bread slices (the spread goes nicely with a fairly dense bread)

Method

Combine mayonnaise, curry, chili, lemon juice and salt and pepper In a bowl.

Puree chickpeas in a food processor. Add chickpea puree to mayo mixture. Stir in pecans, raisins, green onion and celery.

Spread on whole wheat bread slices and top with red onion, pea shoots, lettuce leaves and another bread slice.

Rating: Quite enjoyable, and worth repeating. Dave was a tad skeptical, saying it looked awfully healthy, but then he made nom nom sounds. We cut the recipe in half, since it claimed it served 4 as originally written. But we made three perfectly generous sandwiches out of this half batch (as written above) and still had leftovers.  It made a nice lunch along with a garlicky Greek salad. It helped revive us after we planted the first of four raised beds.