Starting the Day With Rhubarb Coffee Cake and A Keeper from the Recipe Box

 I wish I remember where I got this recipe. I think someone had made it at church and they shared the recipe with me because I loved it so much. Anyway... I hadn't ever made it myself so when the garden is exploding with rhubarb, the best thing to do is bake this delicious coffee cake.

Rhubarb Coffee Cake

 1 cup coarsely chopped pecans

½ cup firmly packed brown sugar

½ teaspoon cinnamon

½ teaspoon nutmeg

2 1/3 cups flour

1 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

¼ cup butter, softened

1 ½   cups sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

4 cups  rhubarb, cut in ½ inch pieces

1 cup sour cream

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 10” bundt pan.  In a medium bowl, comine pecans, brown sugar, and cinnamon until well missed. In a large bowl sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. With electric mixer on medium speed, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in vanilla. Stir flour mixture into butter mixture until smooth. Fold in rhubarb and sour cream.

Sprinkle one third of the nut mixture evenly over the bottom of the pan. Spread half the batter over the nut mixture. Sprinkle with remaining nut mixture then spread with remaining batter.

Bake 50-55 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean. Cool in pan on wire rack 10 minutes. Then invert the cake onto a wire rack and cool completely.

A Wonderful Evening for JEJ's Birthday

To celebrate JEJ's birthday today we spent a lovely evening at dinner at lovitt restaurant just south of Colville, Washington. Wanting to try this local restaurant for awhile, it was a perfect summer evening for gazing at the beautiful view of the Colville Valley from the restaurant window. We enjoyed entrees created from scratch using produce and food products from around our area prepared to perfection by the owner and chef Norman Six. His wife Kristen served us and answered my questions about how they pickled the rhubarb for the salad and where the gorgeous black and white photos on the walls came from ( the center room featured students' photos from Colville High School while others were done by a friend).

After JEJ enjoyed steak barbecued out back with fruit wood and I dined on tasty pasta primavera with homemade spaghetti and local goat cheese, we decided we had to try the desserts. Who has ever tried creme brulee topped with huckleberries? JEJ decided to try it while I had the cherry rhubarb shortcake with homemade honey vanilla ice cream. No regrets on our choices. Now I have had homemade ice cream before, but this frozen delight made right there by the chef was by far the freshest, creamiest, tastiest ice cream I have ever had.
If you haven't tried lovitt restaurant and live in the Inland Empire, it is well worth the drive. You can visit their website here and learn about the restaurant, directions to get there, and read reviews from the Spokesman Review, Sunset Magazine, the Inlander and other publications.For an added pleasure I was able to capture the mountains by Kettle Falls as we drove Highway 395 just before sunset.

Father's Day Pie Social and a Keeper from the Recipe Box

"The righteous man walks in his integrity;

his children are blessed after him." -Proverbs 20:7

Today our church had a pie social in honor of the fathers. My contribution was a strawberry-rhubarb pie. I found a bag of strawberries from last season hiding in the freezer and picked some fresh rhubarb from the garden this morning. The recipe is from my grandmother's original Betty Crocker Cookbook.
If you want to try it, you can read it here right off the page here.

Christmas Baking: An Inland Empire Girl Tradition and Keepers from the Recipe Box

At holiday time each year I do baking as gifts for family, friends, and neighbors. Some years I do a variety of cookies. Other years I mix it up and do breads and candies. This week-end I did holiday breads. The biggest reason I chose the following breads is because I still had a bumper crop of rhubarb and zucchini waiting in the freezer to be used. I love being able not only to give people homemade bread, but also home grown produce!I started with a recipe I haven't used very often. After JEJ did a taste test he decided it was a keeper. These Fresh Rhubarb Loaves combine tart rhubarb, the fragrance of nutmeg and other yummy ingredients to create a loaf that can be served at breakfast, brunch, or as a snack.



Fresh Rhubarb Loaves
1/2 cup butter
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1 egg
1 cup buttermilk
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg ( I use a bit more nutmeg from the spice bottle)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/3 cups finely diced rhubarb
1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon


Cream together the butter and brown sugar. Add the egg and beat until well blended. To the flour add the soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg. With the mixer on low, combine the four mixture alternately with the buttermilk. Blend in the vanilla. By hand stir in the nuts and lastly the rhubarb.

Pour batter into two greased and floured 9x5x2 inch bread pans. Sprinkle the mixture of sugar and cinnamon on top of unbaked loaves. ( I skipped this and just sprinkled them with white sparkling sugar when I took them out.) Bake at 350 for 40-50 minutes. Remove from oven and cool completely before removing from pans.



I also made Zucchini Bread Plus which is posted here. The delicious Pumpkin-Chip Bread was the third recipe I mixed up and it can be found here. All three of these recipes are found in the Best of Friends, Etc. Cookbook by Darlene Glantz Skees.

Quick and Easy Rhubarb Cake: From the Recipe Box

Rhubarb is one of those plants I think everyone has grown up with. It is actually a vegetable. I have heard stories of friends going out in the garden and just pulling the stalks and eating them raw. I always waited until somebody like Mom or Grandma put it in a dessert or sauce of some kind. Today I harvested my first crop of rhubarb of the season.Now that I raise rhubarb I have collected quite a few recipes. I always make strawberry rhubarb jam later when the strawberries are ripe. I also like rhubarb better baked in a recipe with another companion fruit. Peaches, mandarin oranges, and again strawberries come to mind. The recipe below lists strawberry jello, but another recipe had raspberry. You can experiment. This cake is quick, easy, and delicious. I will post other rhubarb recipes as spring turns to summer. Enjoy!

Quick and Easy Rhubarb Cake

Ingredients:
1 (18.25 ounce) package yellow cake mix
4 cups rhubarb, chopped
1 (3 ounce) package strawberry flavored gelatin mix
3/4 cup white sugar
1/2 cup butter
1 cup water
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
Line the bottom of one ungreased 9x13 inch baking pan with the diced rhubarb. Sprinkle the white sugar over the top. Then sprinkle the gelatin over the top of the sugar. Next sprinkle the cake mix over the top of the gelatin.
Melt the butter or margarine and pour it over the top of the cake mix. Pour the water over the top of the cake.
Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 45 minutes.
If you are using frozen rhubarb reduce the amount of water used to 1/2 cup. It can be served warm with frozen yogurt, ice cream, or whipped cream.