Vegetarian Dessert

Rhubarb. I feel like I need to admit that prior to this recipe, I had never eaten rhubarb. I’m not a big fan of celery and it just looks like giant pink celery so why would I want to eat it? What is particularly astonishing about this situation is that strawberry rhubarb pie is one of my dad’s favorite desserts. I grew up with this pie being made in my household somewhat regularly. Still, I never tried it. As I sifted through my grandma’s recipe box I knew I needed to get over myself and give this a go.

I feel like you need to know your fruits and vegetables in raw form before cooking with them. So, I did it. I took a bite of raw rhubarb – BITTER!!! Clearly sugar is needed to balance this out, no wonder I’ve only ever seen it in desserts. I also tasted the batter before pouring it into the loaf pans (I know, I was risking salmonella with the raw egg). I was expecting it to be sweet like a muffin or pumpkin bread but it was actually quite mild. My second confession for this recipe is that I was starting to think this might be my first fail of Grandma’s recipe box. I. Was. Wrong! The brown sugar crumbles on top added just the right amount of sweetness to make this bread completely delightful and the bitterness of the rhubarb subsided as it baked. Alright, rhubarb lovers of the world, I get it and I’m now a member of your club!

Tips:

Sometimes your hands are better tools than anything you can buy. I found it easiest to mix the topping ingredients together by hand.
You can grease your loaf pans if you don’t have parchment paper.

Rhubarb Bread

Bread:

1 ½ cups packed brown sugar

2/3 cup vegetable oil

1 egg

1 cup buttermilk

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 ½ cups all purpose flour

1 ½ cups diced rhubarb

½ cup walnut pieces

Topping:

½ cup packed brown sugar

1 Tablespoon unsalted butter, slightly softened

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°F and line two loaf pans with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, mix together all bread ingredients in order listed. Pour equal amounts of batter into each loaf pan.

In a small bowl, mix together topping ingredients. Sprinkle equal amounts of topping over each pan of batter.

Bake 50-60 minutes or until test until a test stick can be inserted and removed clean. Once loaves are baked, let cool 20 minutes before removing from pans. Slice and serve slightly warm or let loaves finish cooling on a wire rack.

Original recipe source unknown. Recipe has been modified from this version for the purpose of this blog.

I have so many wonderful memories that include ice cream! Clearly a sign of a happy childhood. A sign of a happy adulthood, while we’re at it! Blizzard dates with high school friends and clown cones for my 7^th birthday party were awesome but the best memories are with my grandfather. He would pull out the big crank churn and help us make homemade ice cream. It felt like it took hours of churning and adding more salt and more ice. But the reward was always worth the wait. Fresh from the churn, it was like soft serve ice cream. I always added chocolate syrup on top and Grandpa would help me scrape every last bit from my bowl.

Those memories with Grandpa are incredibly sweet. However, as a career woman, a wife and a mom, I don’t have the patience to wait on ice cream to churn. When I saw the no-churn ice cream trend I knew I had to try it. The basic concept is combining whipped cream with sweetened condensed milk. Beyond this, the flavor combinations are limited only by your own imagination. The coffee flavor I’ve created here seems to me like a great excuse to have ice cream for breakfast.

Tips:

If you’re caffeine sensitive, feel free to use decaf instant coffee rather than regular.
Be sure whip the heavy cream yourself rather than using premade whipped cream. There is a difference in texture and sweetness.

No Churn Chocolate Chunk Coffee Ice Cream

16oz heavy cream

1 single serving packet instant coffee granules (I used Starbucks Via)

1 Tablespoon hot water

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

14oz sweetened condensed milk

½ cup chopped dark chocolate

Directions:

In a large, cold bowl, beat heavy cream until soft peaks form. In a medium bowl, stir coffee and hot water until coffee dissolves. Stir vanilla and sweetened condensed milk into coffee until well combined. Mix coffee mixture into whipped cream. Stir in chocolate. Pour ice cream into a 9×5 loaf pan. Cover with plastic wrap and freeze for a minimum of 6 hours, preferably overnight.