Rhubarb muffins (maybe the last batch here)

Rhubarb, cut this morning

 A double batch of sour cream rhubarb muffins. Probably our last from that plant.

Books are for reading, necklaces are for wearing, pie plants are for pies

“There was pie plant in the garden; she must make a couple of pies.” ~~ Laura Ingalls Wilder, The First Four Years

A useful mantra for the frugal is "what do I have that I can use, instead of thinking that I need something else?" As the DHM famously put it, "what's in your hand?" Sometimes we forget that one reason for decluttering is so we can appreciate the things we do keep.

What books do you already have on the shelf? Have you read the ones you downloaded to your Kindle app last year, or the year before? I just finished one of my long-time Kindle-sitters, at 10,000 feet, because the crossword puzzle book I'd brought was excruciatingly boring, and the Wi-Fi wasn't free. Of course looking out the window at the clouds was free, but I wasn't right by a window, and where I could sort of see out, people kept closing the shades. So, the downloaded books came in handy.

What do you have in your jewelry box? I have a necklace with a green pendant, that Mr. Fixit gave me some time ago. I cleaned out my box this spring, got rid of the non-keepers, put a few special but unwearable things away, and that left the things I liked but hadn't been wearing, like the green necklace. So now it's where I can grab it easily and put it on.

What do you have hidden in your china cupboard? A pottery dish? Candles? Fancy bowls? We are paper napkin users, by and large, although we do have a stash of homemade cloth napkins we use as well. Sometimes the stack of paper napkins sits right on the kitchen table, which is not attractive. Sometimes they sit in a basket, which is better. Today I pulled out a vintage tin box my dad gave me (like this one), and slipped the napkins into that, just for a change. Better to use things than to hide them away.

What's in the closet? What are your three favourite shirts or dresses or hats or shoes to wear in the summer? Summer is short, at least where we live, so wear them lots and enjoy them. (Like Christmas things that you see or eat or sing one month out of the year: put the other things aside and make the most of the holidays.)

I just finished one other book, one that the Apprentice loaned me. In the story, one character has a special celebration, and two other people decide to commemorate it by giving him a baseball card of his favourite player ever, Yutaka Enatsu. This is not easy (especially in pre-Internet days), because the man already owns most of the early Enatsu cards, but for reasons too complicated to explain here, he lives somewhat in the past and would be very sad if he found out that Enatsu was later traded to another team. The searchers do, through a few strokes of luck, come up with a card that fits the bill, and the giving and the receiving is everything they hoped for. One little coloured piece of cardboard, but chosen with love, and treasured.

Enjoy your small treasures for the smiles they give.

Around the Treehouse (photos)

Rhubarb

Out the back window. The darker patches are where we had sod put in.

Living room, post-couch. (A spring in the back flew apart last week, so we turfed the couch and moved the love seat into its place.)

Antique-market find from yesterday.

June, outdoors

 

Rhubarb Crisp, in a flash (and some use-it-up ideas)

Well, more or less of a flash.

Mr. Fixit had the afternoon off, and we picked up Grandpa Squirrel and went to a flea market.  So I had about half an hour when we got home to get supper on the table.

This was helped out by the fact that we had Reuben Chicken going in the slow cooker (chicken breasts, sauerkraut, and Thousand Island dressing), to which I quickly added a bit of cornstarch and water (you knew I was going to say that).  If I'd had some dinner rolls, we could have just eaten it as hot sandwiches, but we didn't have any, and we'd had a lot of on-a-bun meals lately anyway.

What else was in the fridge and freezer, on the day before grocery day?

A few frozen perogies, a bag of Asian-style frozen vegetables, a package of whole mushrooms.  I started the perogies going in a pot of hot water, and added the mushrooms plus about half the bag of vegetables.  (Mushrooms rinsed but not cut up.) I drained the whole thing before the veggies got mushy, added some margarine to the pot, and let it stay warm while I set the table, put out a bowlful of Triscuits, a jar of applesauce, and a few other things.

In the meantime, I was thinking about the fresh rhubarb that Ponytails had brought in the day before, and the cupful or so of homemade strawberry sauce that was sitting at the back of the fridge.  I didn't want to turn on the big oven, but the toaster oven would do fine to bake a dessert, if I could get it in quickly enough.

So in a small casserole I put a good layer of applesauce, the remains of the strawberries, and the quickly-chopped rhubarb (cut it fairly small if you want it to bake quickly).  I gave it all a good sprinkle (I mean a GOOD sprinkle) of cinnamon-sugar mixture.  I mixed a cupful of rolled oats, half a cup each of flour and wheat germ, a bit more cinnamon-sugar, and a bit of brown sugar (end of the bag), and added what should have been half a cup of oil but turned out to be a lot less since that was the very last of a jug, and I couldn't be bothered to go to the basement and get a new one.  I made it up by dabbing some margarine over the top before the dessert went in the oven.  It was done after about 40 minutes in the toaster oven (check and make sure the rhubarb is soft).  Good with yogurt or vanilla ice cream.

Rhubarb, what to do with it

We've gotten quite a few Google hits this week for things to do with rhubarb, since we did post about it a few times over the past couple of springs.

You can make rhubarb pie.

You can make upside-down rhubarb muffins. There's an easier muffin recipe in Edna Staebler's last cookbook (she has a whole chapter of rhubarb recipes), and there's Coffeemamma's sour cream version.

You can make rhubarb jam.

You can make all kinds of fancy rhubarb things.

You can break off a piece, sprinkle salt on it, and eat it raw. Not my thing really, but some people like it.

But short of that, what's the easiest thing to do with rhubarb, especially if you're not a baker and/or you don't have time? Put it (the chopped-up stems--you do know not to eat the leaves, right?) in your microwave and cook it. The way we did it two years ago, or the even easier way I cooked it last night: a big glass measuring cup about half full of chopped rhubarb, a bit of brown sugar, and two spoonfuls of water which were entirely unnecessary. I keep having to remind myself that Rhubarb Makes Its Own Juice. I also added two spoonfuls of last summer's strawberry jam, and a grated apple, but those things are also unnecessary (nice, but just extras). Repeat after me: chop rhubarb, add a LITTLE sweetener, cover, and microwave until it's soft enough to eat. Take it out and stir it if you're not sure, and put it back in until it's done the way you like it.

No crust, no batter, no gluten, no dairy, no salt. Eat it over ice cream / frozen alternative, or just plain.

A little rhubarb

That's what we had--our still-skimpy plant yielded up about a cupful of diced rhubarb this week. Enough for muffins, but it was pretty hot to turn on the oven. I flipped through rhubarb dessert recipes, and saw a photo of raspberry-rhubarb parfaits.

Well, we could do that, except we didn't have any raspberries. But we did have some leftover canned pineapple in the fridge. And homemade yogurt, and granola. And a microwave oven...

So this is what I did: combined the rhubarb, the pineapple (about a cupful of tidbits), a quarter cup of sugar, and a spoonful of water in a glass measuring cup. (You probably don't need the water, but I'm still new at microwaving and I wasn't sure if it needed a bit of liquid.) I microwaved it on High for a couple of minutes, until the rhubarb was soft.

Then the girls and I layered granola, yogurt, and the rhubarb mixture in our fanciest stemmed glasses (this amount made five small desserts with no leftovers). We also added a spoonful of raspberry jam on the top of each, mostly for colour, and chilled them until dinnertime. And they were very elegant and delicious.

More rhubarb recipes

If you're looking for rhubarb recipes, Canadian Living has links here to some recipes from last month's issue. (That's mostly to jog my own memory!)

Upside-down Rhubarb Muffins

For a change from Coffeemamma's recipe. These are more like small cakes than muffins, and you don't get quite the same honest tang of rhubarb when it's sweetened up with the brown sugar--but they are still very good.

Upside-down Rhubarb Muffins
(from The Harrowsmith Cookbook Volume 3, sent in by Joan Alrey of Rivers, Manitoba)

1 cup "finely" chopped rhubarb (we just diced ours with a knife)
1/4 cup melted butter or margarine
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
Another 1/3 cup soft butter or margarine
1/3 cup sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 cups flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 cup milk

Ponytails made the topping: she melted the 1/4 cup margarine in the microwave and then mixed in the rhubarb and brown sugar and dropped the mixture into the 12 holes of a muffin pan (greased first). Mama Squirrel made the batter: she blended the margarine, sugar and egg and then mixed in the dry ingredients alternately with the milk, stirring just to moisten. We spooned the batter (it was fairly stiff) on top of the rhubarb, and baked it at 350 degrees F for 20 to 25 minutes.

Now this is the little trick at the end: get your cooling rack ready (with some waxed paper underneath if you're nervous). When the muffins are done, take them out and dextrously invert the whole thing on the cooling rack--but leave the pan on top of the muffins for a few minutes to let all the rhubarb moisture run out. (It's not really that messy.) Serve them warm if you can (otherwise you might have to refrigerate them).

An abundance post: Make It Do

Make It Do has always been one of my favourite topics. Except that the phrase Make It Do sounds a bit grim, like Grin and Bear It. I prefer the DHM's question What Do You Have In Your Hand? Or in your cupboard...or on your bookshelf. What DO we have in this camp kitchen to feed the two vegetarians? (I talked the cook into putting some of the soup into another pot before he added meat.) What can we do with all this coloured telephone wire in the craft room? (Braided bracelets for eighty campers.) What would you do with these hypothetical food hamper groceries for four hungry people for three days? (That was for a community nutrition class--and I got a good mark on that one! Nobody else thought of making peanut butter balls...)

What's In Your Hand is Ma Ingalls and blackbird pies. It's popsicle sticks and Cheerios for math, and teaching phonics with a pile of old Highlights magazines. It's all those recipes invented to use up things like rhubarb that really don't taste so good on their own. (OK, I know there are people who chew on raw rhubarb...) It's how Marsha and I once taught Sunday School in a un-child-friendly college classroom: we stuck pictures up with Stick-tack and took them down again every week, brought old couch cushions to sit on and our own toys to play with, and let the kids colour at the adult-sized tables. And they really did manage fine without mini-sized chairs.

It's a dull prairie cabin with sunflowers planted around it. (Virtual sunflower seeds if you can help me remember where that story came from, because I've forgotten.)

Use Your Creativity is about surprise and discovery, instead of just "I suppose I can make do with it." It's Athena's kids retelling stories with Playmobil. It's Ponytails' coloured-pencil drawing to go with Mendelssohn's Fingal's Cave (maybe I can scan that one in). It's Homeschool Radio Shows' Fourth Annual Make-Your-Own-Radio-Show Contest. It's Meredith's closet makeover and tree-frog-painted table. It's two balls of Dollarama yarn that got turned into one pair of slippers (for Crayons), a dolly hat and scarf, and a couple of hair scrunchies. (You couldn't buy all that even at Dollarama for the two dollars the yarn cost.)

Make It Do is combining two or more parts to make something better than a whole. Instead of waiting for the perfect thing to arrive, the perfect homeschool curriculum to be written, or our body to revert to the perfect size, we use what's there. Can we use it a little differently? Do we need to adapt, go faster/slower, make it more challenging, skip the questions or tests, include more hands-on activities? Or should we use just the best part of it? (For Meredith: Every cloud has a cashmere lining.)

We're using a not-perfect curriculum for math; but it doesn't matter that it doesn't cover everything, because there are lots of ways to learn the things that it doesn't include, and it's kind of interesting having a break from the same workbook all the time anyway. Combining resources for homeschool science can make a stronger overall program than trying to pick one perfect textbook or study guide. We just got an Astronomy book for next year's school--but we also have an old Sky Science experiment kit and several books about the solar system, so we'll combine what we have.

And Make It Do is finding new ways to use what you already have. Cutting holes into the bottom edges of a cereal box is one surefire way of getting kids to notice long-neglected marbles (you shoot them at the holes). You can use wooden blocks to build temporary furniture for plastic trolls. You can learn new rules for cards, checkers, or dominoes.

Not what you ordered? Not just what you hoped for? Make it do. And have fun.

A Pie That Really Schmecks

(This post is part of the Day that Really Schmecks blog round-up, in honour of the late author Edna Staebler and the reprinting of her first cookbook, Food That Really Schmecks, by Wilfrid Laurier University Press. The round-up is hosted by Jasmine at the Cardamom Addict blog, and will officially take place on January 15th. Thank you very much, Jasmine and WLU Press!)

I first saw Food That Really Schmecks in our school library when I was twelve or thirteen. I’m not sure what relevance the librarian thought it had for seventh and eighth graders, but I found it on the shelf and wanted a copy of my own. Like Edna’s, my own background was a hodgepodge of Waterloo County (Ontario) cultures. Like Edna, I had some pioneering Mennonite great-something-great-grandparents. And I grew up in a community that reflected not only the historical side of Edna’s cooking (the bean salads and elderberry pies) but what I think of as the Church Lady side of her food: potluck suppers; bazaar baking and fudge-making, and tables of chili sauce and rhubarb jam for sale; church card parties and strawberry socials.

I did get a copy of the book, along with More Food That Really Schmecks which came out right about then as well. And I cooked and baked a lot of those recipes over the years: cookies, breads, pies, even a few of the oddities like Wieners and Buttons.

Edna and my grandma were about the same age, and much of the food in that 1968 book could have come right out of Grandma’s kitchen. I’d never seen a recipe written down for noodle potpie (Edna called it Hingle Potpie), which Grandma passed on to us as a kind of kitchen art form, showing us how to drop the noodle dough in just where the chicken broth was boiling, and lamenting that her noodles weren’t thin enough to have passed muster with her own grandmother. (Mr. Fixit’s Schwabian grandmother made a similar chicken dish with homemade noodles she called Flekele.)

Grandma also made pies—strawberry, elderberry, and Dutch Apple. I’m still trying to define what makes a Waterloo County Dutch Apple or Schnitz pie different from any other recipe (and it’s not the same as the Dutch Apple pie Wikipedia describes). Edna includes at least three different recipes for Schnitz Pie in her book, plus another simply called “Dutch Apple Pie.” Our Dutch Apple is a single-crust pie, and I think it’s richer than “regular” (double-crust, all-American) apple pie. Grandma’s version is pretty close to Edna’s “Cream Schnitz Pie,” although I don’t have exact amounts, just my mom’s description of how to make it. The version that I make myself (usually when I can get really good apples in the fall) is her “Cream and Crumb Schnitz Pie.” Both recipes are included here with permission from the publisher, as part of this blogging event.

[The recipes are typed as they appear in Food That Really Schmecks, including the WOW! at the end. I’ve include a couple of family notes in the Cream Schnitz version.]

Cream Schnitz Pie

Pastry for one-crust, 9-inch pie

5 or 7 apples—depending on size
3 tbsp. flour
1/8 tsp. salt
1 cup thick cream—sweet, sour, or on the turn [my mother says that Grandma preferred “rich milk or light cream”]
¾ tsp. cinnamon
1 cup sugar

Combine ¾ cup of the sugar, flour, salt and the cream and beat until smooth. Peel and core the apples, cut them in schnitz [slices] and arrange prettily and closely in the pastry shell. Pour the cream mixture over the apples. [Grandma's method was slightly different; she mixed the dry ingredients and sprinkled most of them in the bottom of the crust; added the apples; and then said to “pour just enough milk so you can see it coming up over the apples.”] Mix the remaining ¼ cup sugar with the cinnamon and sprinkle over the top. Bake at 425 degrees for 10 minutes, turn heat to 350 degress and bake half an hour till the apples are soft and the filling is set. Watch it. [I assume Edna meant to watch it in case it burns, but my mom reminded me that you should also watch this kind of pie because it has a tendency to bubble over a bit and make a sticky mess in the oven. She recommends putting a cookie pan or foil underneath to catch any drips.]



Cream-and-Crumb Schnitz Pie

“If you want to have it both ways [cream and crumbs], try this one.”

Pastry for one-crust, 9-inch pie

Enough apples to fill up the pie shell
1 cup brown sugar
3 tbsp. butter
1/3 cup flour
2/3 cup cream—sweet, sour, or turning
¾ tsp. cinnamon

Mix butter, sugar and flour into crumbs. Sprinkle half in the bottom of the shell. Peel and core the apples, cut them in schnitz and arrange them on top of the crumbs. Mix half the remaining crumbs with the cream and pour the mixture over the apples. Finally, mix the cinnamon with the rest of the crumbs and sprinkle these over the top. Bake at 425 degrees for 10 minutes, then at 350 degrees for about half an hour. WOW!

----*----*----*----*----*----*----

I met Edna Staebler once or twice at book signings, but it wasn’t until 2002 that I wrote to let her know how much her cookbooks had meant to me. I was delighted when she wrote back, in a note that sounded like she was still very much herself—“at almost 97.”

“3:44 a.m., Nov. 22. Thanks for your wonderful letter about my Schmecks books—it is so enthusiastic and well expressed. Twelve hours ago I had a molar extracted, it is very painful and I can’t sleep—your mention of hingle potpie and all the other things you enjoy makes me hungry. I’ll be sipping nothing but soup for awhile—Fortunately I have friends who kindly bring me some they have made & frozen.

“Keep eating well as long as you can. At almost 97 I must be more cautious—but I’m lucky and [grateful?], & will eat heartily when the tooth heals.

“Sorry to tell you all this.

I just read your letter over again, it makes me feel better to think of all those good things to eat. Maybe in a few days----Edna Staebler.”

Treehouse Recipe Index for 2006

[Reposted and updated]

Here's a roundup of the recipes we posted this year on Dewey's Treehouse. I didn't include the ones that were only given as a link. And I should note that most of these aren't original: they came from Food that Really Schmecks, Whole Foods for the Whole Family, The Harrowsmith Cookbook, Vegetarian Times, Canadian Living, and friends who like to cook.

[Update note: one might THINK, especially after viewing the November and December recipes, that we eat nothing in the Treehouse but chocolate. Mama Squirrel thinks that would be nice, but it isn't true. As our New Year's Resolution, we promise to provide a few slightly more healthful recipes in 2007.]

January
Kitchener Special
Kasha-Vegetable Pilaf
Sugar-free Banana Prune Bread

February
Subversive Tuna Recipe (Tuna Wrap-Up)
Raisin Sesame Cookies

March
Cocoa-Ricotta Cream
Beef and Green Bean Stir Fry
Dulcie's Macaroni Meal in a Skillet

April
Good Friday Kiffle (or Kolacky or Kolache)--one of our most-Googled recipes

May
Coffeemamma's Sour Cream Rhubarb Muffins

July
No-Bake Brownies

August
Hungarian Stew
Swiss-Cashew Salad, Our Version
Serendipity and the DHM's Chicken Recipe

September
Tofu Chocolate Pie

October
Cranberry-Apricot Loaf
Pumpkin Gingerbread Snacking Cake
Edna Staebler's Glorious Golden Pumpkin Pie

November
Small Chocolate Cake
Rather Retro Recipe (Lemon Dessert)
Jam Bars
Chocolate Fingers

December
Christmas Day Lunch (Jiggle Bells and Star of the East Salad Plate)
Chocolate-Apricot Confections
Chocolate-Hazelnut Slices or Crescents


Our 2005 Recipe Index

Rhubarb-Pear Crisp, yum

This recipe is what we had for dessert tonight. (Mr. Fixit and the Apprentice had to hurry because they were on their way to the Apprentice's voice lesson, but they had a bit anyway.) It calls for a pound of rhubarb, and we had only a few stalks because we have an un-cooperative rhubarb plant that doesn't like us to take too much at a time. But I just used what we had along with the pears, and it was still good. The ginger is a very nice addition.

(I changed a couple of other things, too: I left out the walnuts, didn't dab anything with butter, and used oil instead of butter to make the crumbs.)

Rhubarb, Year Two

What I'm eating: Coffeemamma's Rhubarb Muffins, made out of the skinny little fresh rhubarb stalks from our garden. We put the plant in last year (actually more than one, but this is the survivor), but it produced nothing all last summer. This spring it started getting leaves very early, and I managed to get enough from it today to make a double batch of the muffins that we never got to try last year. (See Coffeemamma's comment on last year's post; the comments in the recipe are hers as well.) (Update: Coffeemamma has been taking a break from blogging, for various very good reasons, but she's posted a Blue Castle Update today.)

Sour Cream Rhubarb Muffins

Blend these together in a small bowl:
1/2 cup sour cream
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 large egg

Stir these ingredients together:
1 1/3 cup flour (I have successfully substituted 1 cup unbleached, 1/3 cup whole wheat)
1 cup diced rhubarb
2/3 cup brown sugar (or raw cane sugar)
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt

Stir in sour cream mixture until moistened (batter will be thick).
Drop large spoonful into 12 greased muffin cups or paper-lined muffin cups.

In small bowl, combine these ingredients:
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
2 tsp. melted butter

Spoon this over batter (or lightly brush muffins with melted butter and sprinkle with sugar-cinnamon if you have a jar on hand). Bake muffins at 350 degrees for 20 - 25 minutes. (A note from the Treehouse: you might want to put a cookie sheet under your muffin pans just in case of drips--the sugar mixture bubbles a bit.)

I always double this recipe, and they are still gone the same day they are made ;-) Enjoy!

More Rhubarb

I guess Mr. Fixit had been asking for rhubarb around the office too, because when he went to work yesterday he was sent off to another friend's to pick up some more! And this second batch of rhubarb has some funny connections for the Squirrel family which are too long to explain, but to make it short, the people with the rhubarb came from the same part of the world as Mr. Fixit's grandparents, and this rhubarb is a whole different type than the first pieces we were given to plant; this is a European kind and it was more of a big root (the other kind came in smaller stalks). So Mama Squirrel hopes The Apprentice means what she says about loving rhubarb.

Rhubarb and Psammeads

Hi, this is Ponytails! I have a cold.

Today we were planting rhubarb. We planted some in my garden.

I like that in the Five Children and It, everybody wants The Lamb. The Lamb was the baby. All the four other children were named Anthea (her nickname was Panther), Jane, Robert, and Cyril. One of their maids was named Martha. And they found a Psammead in the sand pit, and their mother wasn't there, she was visiting their sick grandmother. One time Jane wrote a letter and she said, "Dear Mother, I hope Grandma is feeling better. We found...(she paused because she was trying to think of Psammead; they looked it up in the dictionary but it wasn't there because they were looking in the S's when it was in the P's)...We found a Thing. Right now is post time, your loving girl, Jane."

What I was talking about everybody wanting the baby, is that Robert wished one time by accident, he wished that everybody wanted the Lamb. There was a rich rich lady; she snatched the baby away from them because she wanted it; and they had to run and run after it, and the lady went into a house. And the two coachmen were saying, No, I want the baby; no, I want the baby! Then Cyril, the oldest, he sneaked into the carriage and picked up the sleeping baby, and he was safe again.

Rhubarb

Some divide the world into two kinds of people. Mama Squirrel thinks there are two kinds of women: those who are still picking, cooking, freezing and eating rhubarb; and those who can't spell it, won't eat it, and don't care anyway.

Somehow, pride in this (neglected) corner of womens' life appeals to Mama Squirrel. Cleaning the nest does not thrill her by any means, but cooking is something she enjoys, and participating in the rites of rhubarb makes her feel a kind of sisterhood with those who have faithfully saved rhubarb recipes and created ways to make use of this weird dessert-thing-that-isn't-sweet.

When Mama Squirrel was very young, she did not like stewed rhubarb at all--it was right up there with turnips and canned peas. It was a weird brown colour, it was mushy, it was too sweet but still tasted bad. It also didn't help that one of Mama Squirrel's daddy's favourite teases was "Do you think the rain's going to hurt the rhubarb?" Now she not only eats rhubarb but bakes it into pies and crisps, and has ventured out with a pair of scissors to cut some off the neighbours' plant (it's okay, they asked her to). Then the neighbours moved and the rhubarb disappeared. This spring Mr. Fixit started saying the Squirrels needed their own rhubarb plant, but they didn't know where to find any.

Yesterday Mr. Fixit visited his massage therapist and mentioned our lack of rhubarb (having a back massage, unlike having your teeth fixed, does allow you a chance to converse with your health practitioner). The massage therapist, an enthusiastic gardener herself, knew someone nearby who had a backyard full of it and who would be happy to give us a piece--so Mr. Fixit came home with a pot full of rhubarb.

The young squirrels, needless to say, are only mildly thrilled with this acquisition (a pizza plant would have been more to their taste), but they are outside as Mama Squirrel types this, helping Mr. Fixit plant the rhubarb.

[Update: for rhubarb recipes on this blog, click on the "rhubarb" label at the bottom of this post.]