Spiced Rhubarb Bread

This lightly scented rhubarb bread is a wonderful alternative to rhubarb pie or crisp. It’s absolutely divine for breakfast with a cup of coffee, as a midday treat, or topped with vegan vanilla ice cream for a scrummy dessert. However you have it, this sweet and tart dessert bread is incredibly easy and sure to please even rhubarb snubbers.  Made with olive oil and banana, it’s a little healthier than other recipes as well.

I really love rhubarb. I know it's not super popular with everyone. However, it's ubiquitous up here in Alaska; almost every house has a giant, lumbering rhubarb plant (or two, or three) loitering outside like sentinels. In the spring, our local paper ran an a story about the blushing stalks; that even though many houses have rhubarb plants, most are inherited when the house was bought. That rhubarb, nowadays, is on the out! It's tart, it's banal, and it's just not that tasty.

To me, that's blasphemous. I adore rhubarb. I love how hardy and stubborn it is; how it'll grow anywhere and be the first plant the shine it's smiling face, welcoming in spring. I love it's giant leaves and remembering my Grandma Nancy showing me how to wear one as a hat when I was a little girl. I love it's sour and pungent aroma, and how it's flavor it makes my lips pucker with delight. I love that it can be savory or sweet and how it's wonderful in pretty much everything from muffins to stewed, on top of ice cream. It's versatile and resilient. Just like Alaskans.

I am lucky enough to have a unique Russian variety, whose leaves are shaped slightly different than the common variety. This makes me feel especially domestic, in a homesteady type of way. It's silly and frivolous, but it makes me happy in a small and odd way. 

Spiced Rhubarb Bread

By Kathleen Henry @ Produce On Parade

Published 07/03/2017

This lightly scented rhubarb bread is a wonderful alternative to rhubarb pie or crisp. It’s absolutely divine for breakfast with a cup of coffee, as a midday treat, or topped with vegan vanilla ice cream for a scrummy dessert. However you have it, this sweet and tart dessert bread is incredibly easy and sure to please even rhubarb snubbers. Made with olive oil and banana, it’s a little healthier than other recipes as well.

Ingredients

• 1 cup unsweetened, plain soymilk
• 1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 ¼ cup brown sugar, divided
• ⅔ cup olive oil
• 1 medium very ripe banana
• 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp kosher salt
• 1 ½ tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp chai spice or pumpkin pie spice
• 2 cups rhubarb, chopped small
• 1 tbsp vegan butter
• ½ tsp ground cinnamon

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 325°F and coat two 9x5 inch loaf pans with a nonstick cooking spray. Set aside.
2. In a liquid measuring cup, whisk together the soymilk, lemon juice, and vanilla extract; let sit for 5 minutes.
3. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together 1 cup of brown sugar, olive oil, and the banana until very smooth. Whisk in the soymilk mixture.
4. In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, baking soda, and chai spice. Stir in the rhubarb until coated. Slowly stir the flour mixture into the wet mixture until just combined. Divide batter between both the loaf pans. (Can be made into 16 muffins, reduce baking time to about 25 minutes)
5. Melt the butter in a small bowl in the microwave, about 10 seconds. Stir in the remaining ¼ cup brown sugar and cinnamon. Drizzle/scoop the mixture evenly on the top of each loaf.
6. Bake for about 40 minutes, until slightly browned on top and springs back when gently poked. Allow to cool completely in the pan on a wire cooling rack before serving.

Yield: 2 loaves / 16 servings

Anouk loves rhubarb almost as much as Todd and I :)

Rhubarb & Raspberry Nut Crisp

Taking advantage of the backyard bounty, this is healthy and deliciously tart and sweet crisp is a breeze to whip up. Oats and nuts lend their nutrition to make one scrumptious dessert, bursting with sweet and juicy raspberries and puckering rhubarb.

In my world... where there's rhubarb, there's crisp. My love for crisp knows no bounds. Using fresh rhubarb just plucked from the garden and berries that Todd and I picked last summer, there's certainly no better summertime dessert.

This recipe is a deviation from my standard crisp. It's a little healthier; with an all nut crumble and I use erythritol in place of regular sugar for Todd (it aggravates his RA). We had raspberries from my Grandparent's garden on hand in the freezer and though I'm stodgily a strawberry-rhubarb gal, they worked great. 

Perfect for dessert or the most divine breakfast, you really can't go wrong here. I hope you enjoy this scrummy little recipe as much as we did!

“If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need. ”

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

Rhubarb & Raspberry Nut Crisp

By Kathleen Henry @ Produce On Parade

Published 05/23/2016

Taking advantage of the backyard bounty, this is healthy and deliciously tart and sweet crisp is a breeze to whip up. Oats and nuts lend their nutrition to make one scrumptious dessert, bursting with sweet and juicy raspberries and puckering rhubarb.

Ingredients

• 1 ½ cups frozen raspberries
• 1 ½ cups fresh rhubarb (about 3 stalks), sliced
• 2 tbsp ground flaxseed, divided
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• splash of lemon juice
• ½ cup raw almonds
• ½ cup raw pecans
• 1 cup rolled oats
• ¼ cup room-temperature coconut oil
• 2 tbsp agave nectar
• 2 tbsp erythritol or vegan granulated sugar
• ½ tsp ground cinnamon
• pinch of kosher salt

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F and coat a pie dish with a nonstick cooking spray.
2. Mix the raspberries, rhubarb, 1 tbsp ground flaxseed, vanilla, and lemon juice in the pie dish with your hands to combine; spread out into an even layer.
3. Process the almonds and pecans in a food process until a flour-like consistency. Pulse in the remaining ingredients until just combined. We don’t want the oats to be processed too much.
4. Spread the crumb mixture over the berry mixture and bake for about 30 minutes, until the top is golden brown and the juices are bubbling. Serve warm.

Yield: 4

Yum

Read all about how the folks behind the Impossible Food Beyond Burger create that perfect, vegan burger in this totally fascinating interview from Science Friday. 

Wintery Quinoa Porridge

Occasionally, throughout the year and to my considerable delight, freezer items will get shuffled or used; revealing bags of wild, Alaskan mountain blueberries that Todd and I picked in autumn.

Like a reticent squirrel, I stash the berries in the back of the freezer, praying they will tide us over until next fall when we'll continue the tradition of picking them all over again. Usually, come August, I realize I have barely touched them and find myself working the blueberries into a many number of dishes. It's similar to my obsession with  hoarding bath luxuries (I don't even take baths!) like the flowery bubbles, salts, and fragrant fizzies. I keep them stowed away "saving" them for a worthy occasion. Alas, they never get used and I end up throwing them away 10 years later when I eventually find the dust-covered derelicts. 

This will not happen with my blueberries. They will not become freezer-burnt. I shall be better about using them throughout the entirety of the year. I shall deem them worthy of everyday smoothies and oatmeal. Okay, maybe not the smoothies yet...I shall make more pies. I shall celebrate the little buggers, instead of suffocating them with love. 

So, while excavating a bag of the blueberries from the back of the freezer, I also discovered some rhubarb I picked and froze a few months ago. Huzzah! And just like that, this winter-inspired quinoa porridge just fell right into place! 

A most divine wintery breakfast to keep you toasty warm and satisfied on a snowy morning. Wild blueberries and rhubarb from autumn mingle with fresh, winter pomegranates in this timely and humble quinoa porridge, speckled with toasted nuts and seeds. 

You're going to want to save this one for Saturday morning! Oh Saturday...you can't come soon enough.

Did I tell you we finally got snow?! We actually when on a night ski yesterday. Do you night ski too?

Wintery Quinoa Porridge

A most divine wintery breakfast to keep you toasty warm and satisfied on a snowy morning. Wild blueberries and rhubarb from autumn mingle with fresh, winter pomegranates in this timely and humble quinoa porridge, speckled with toasted nuts and seeds. NOTES: Feel free to use any combination of nuts and seeds you like. Toasting them is an extra step, but well worth it!

Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients

• 1 cup quinoa, dry (I like red)
• 1/2 cup nut/seed mixture, chopped (I used pecans, walnuts, sunflower seeds, and sesame seeds)
• 3/4 cup non-dairy milk
• 2 Tbsp. peanut butter
• 1-2 Tbsp. maple syrup
• 1 Tbsp. lemon juice
• 1/2 tsp. alma powder (optional)
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
• dash of freshly ground nutmeg
• small pinch of kosher salt
• 1 1/2 cups frozen, wild blueberries
• 1 cup frozen, chopped rhubarb
• 1/2 pomegranate, seeded (about ½ cup of seeds)

Cooking Directions

1. Bring a medium pot of water to boil with the quinoa. Reduce to a simmer and cook for about 15 minutes, uncovered. Drain all the water from the pot, leaving the quinoa.
2. Meanwhile, over medium heat, toast the nuts and seeds in a sturdy frying pan until fragrant, about 3-5 minutes.
3. Add all the remaining ingredients to the quinoa, including the nuts and seeds, but excluding the berries. Stir well until the peanut butter is completely incorporated.
4. Now, add the berries and over low, heat the porridge until the berries are warm.
5. Serve with an additional splash of non-dairy milk and/or maple syrup.

Dutch Word of The Day

Porridge --> brij (bray)

Good Deed of The Day

Did you guys see that the very first vegan butcher shop is opening up in Minneapolis?! So cool! If I'm ever in the Twin-Cities...check it out more here.