Got Rhubarb? Got Apples?

 With an abundance of the two items mentioned above, I decided to make a crisp. I actually have a recipe for Apple-Rhubarb Crisp, but I tinkered with it. It is very good, but I think I'll tinker some more if I make it again. I liked the changes I made, except I think I'd use even less sugar. The apples moderate the sour rhubarb quite a bit.

I used 1 1/2 times the fruit called for, added oatmeal to the topping and sprinkled it liberally with walnuts.

Serving 1 was dinner, and serving 2 was dessert. No regrets. Serving 3 might be breakfast.

I edited the general text of the book and worked outside. Oh, and went to the food bank in the morning.

Recipe as I made it (I think I would cut the sugar-I like things a little tart- a little more and add more nutmeg)

mix in a bowl:
1 1/2 c chopped apple
1 1/2 c chopped rhubarb
1/2 c stevia (this can just be additional sugar, but I try to use part stevia in desserts)
1/4 c sugar
1/2 t nutmeg
1 beaten egg
spread in a glass 9x13 pan

mix in another bowl
1 stick (1/2 c) softened oleo
3/4 c. brown sugar
1/2 c. flour
1/2 c. oatmeal
cut together until well mixed

spread over fruit and press down

sprinkle with as many walnuts as you want

bake at 375 for 30 min

See New Rhubarb Recipe

New Rhubarb Recipe

  The picture of these cookies with the recipe looked amazing. The reality... not so much. They are OK. Just a basic brown sugar cookie (which I've made from another cookbook and previously also declared "meh.")

These have little chunks of rhubarb in them. They're OK, but I have a book that I'll bet has some much better cookie recipe that uses rhubarb.

If anyone local needs rhubarb, I have a ton. Just contact me.

I edited a lot today. Worked outside for a bit, but it was still very wet when I was out there. Then I met with my proofreader. Oh, and I made cookies. Somehow, the day disappeared. I have a meeting this evening.

See Two Uses for Flour

Cooking Flurry

 
Today was a good day to cook- it was cool with liquid sunshine. And that's exactly what I needed to do! I made a rhubarb dessert and the marinated cauliflower salad I like so much.



One more item to make in the morning. Tomorrow you'll see why.

In other news: I wrote in the morning. Then went to the store to get ingredients. Worked on a project and did this kitchen stuff.

	See Cauliflower Salad
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Granola (Rhubarb) and Good Times

 
I started the day by making some rhubarb granola to take for gifts to people I'm staying with this week. Already had a ton of recipe requests on Facebook. I made this one up to try it, but I'll put the recipe at the end. It got done just in time for me to leave the house. Let me say that this one is not bad, but I think it could be tweaked a bit.



There were a couple of errands to do on my way. First, I dropped off an extra backpack I don't need any more to the Girl Scouts in Ravenna. It was a pack I didn't like much, but they should be able to get some use from it.

Then I needed to get something from my friends Bruce and Linda. Bruce used to be the Executive Director for the North Country Trail Association. Now he's retired.



So, seeing the people was cool, but I finally got to meet the most important member of the family. Bruce's big project since retirement is training dear Miss Carson. Well, no great photos of her. She was too busy being a puppy. She's a sweetie!



Then I went for a short hike on a little piece of NCT near Lowell. It starts off right along the Flat River, and follows some small town streets.



Reached some woods. They smelled all damp and ferny after last night's rain.



Caught a swan in flight on the way back.



Now I'm at the house of other friends for the night. Will tell all tomorrow.

Hike 100 Challenge- I'm up to 24 miles.

North Country Trail north from Lowell Main Street for 2 miles and return

Rhubarb Granola- Try #1
This tastes fine, but not very rhubarb-y. I think I'd use more rhubarb next time.

3 cups rolled oats
1 c. cracked wheat
1 c. grapenuts
a bunch of dried strawberry bits (I threw in enough till it looked colorful- two dehydrator trays full)
2 c. almond slices
1 1/2 c. stewed rhubarb (see instructions below)


The biggest issue with dehydrating rhubarb (which is pretty much what you're doing here) is that the lengthwise fibers in the stalks get tough and make a yukky texture. So to make a fine-textured stewed rhubarb cut the stalks into 1/8 inch crosswise pieces- no need to cut in the other direction. Cook with only a tiny bit of water because the fruit will generate plenty of juice. Sweeten to taste. I added a little bit of Stevia, but I don't like sweet granola, so not much.

Mix the ingredients together in a bowl and spread evenly on cookie sheets with an edge, or cake pans. Bake at 275 degrees F for an hour or so, stirring several times. I think this batch went an hour and 10 minutes. If you increase the stewed rhubarb, it might be even longer. You want the granola to begin to crisp up, but not get too brown. It will continue to brown a bit after you remove from the oven, so if you don't remove it you'll have REALLY brown granola.

It did come out with a nice mixture of clumps and finer pieces, but I would like more rhubarb flavor.

	See Celebration 2017- Bruce Retires
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NCT Vermont Extension- TAM to Middlebury Gap

 
Last road walk of this outing! We had miles to do on route 125, from where the Trail Around Middlebury crosses that route to what's known as Middlebury Gap where the Long Trail crosses that same route. We had a great incentive to finish this walk in record time. There were signs all over Middlebury advertising a Rhubarb Festival. Well, we both love rhubarb! It was 10-2 at the Universalist Unitarian Church. So, we wanted to be back in town by 1 pm. We started hiking at 8:08.

The road quickly rises as soon as it turns east, and provides great views.



When one is not zooming by at 50 mph or more, one can find beautiful things to see along the road. Here's a wild azalea in bloom.



One of our concerns was whether we would actually be able to walk this route. Yes, on the road. There was a bridge over the Middlebury River under construction and cars had to follow a long detour. So, the day before, we had driven past the barriers to the actual bridge to ask if we could walk through. No one was there, but clearly the bridge was in place and walkable. Imagine our surprise when we arrived on foot the next day and discovered it was also open to traffic! But the cars mostly hadn't discovered that yet, so traffic was low on the whole section that was previously closed. We like that.



East of East Middlebury there were serious cuts through the rocks, and each face was moist and covered with exquisite moss and fern gardens. I'll take one of those for my back yard, please. The picture doesn't even begin to do them justice.

The road follows right along beside the river. Steep plunges were followed by flatter spaces. We liked these red rock strata. They were unlike most of the other rocks we saw.



Almost at the top here. This is the Bread Loaf School of English- a graduate college of Middlebury College. It was founded in 1915, and is known for Robert Frost's association with it. The core of buildings are older than the school, built by Joseph Battell, beginning in 1861, as a summer resort. Battell was a local publisher and author who bought up vast tracts of land which eventually ended up mostly as the Green Mountain National Forest. The classic buildings were awesome. It would be very cool to return there for some sort of writing course, sometime.



Here's a baneberry in bloom. Is it red? Actaea rubra, or white? Actaea alba. I didn't know there was a way to tell them apart before the berries appear, but there is! Red baneberry has slimmer, greener stalks, and small hairs. I think this is red. Now that I know this, I'll have to practice with the info.



Occasional breaks in the rocks, near the top of the gap, provide more glimpses of the Green Mountains- looking blue and misty in the morning.



Did we make it to the Rhubarb Festival? We finished hiking at 12:46. And now I'll tell you our dirty little secret. Did we hike this in the west-east direction of travel we'd been doing? Heck no, we had cars and we aren't completely stupid. We walked downhill, east to west.

But there's more to the rhubarb adventure. No one in town that we asked seemed to know anything about it, or even where that church was. Finally, a lady in a bookstore looked it up on line. "Oh yes," she said. "I think they have a new building." She directed us on foot, but it was now well after 1 pm, and we'd already walked 12.2 miles. We hopped in a car and drove there, squeaking into the event just before they stopped serving lunch.

We hadn't really known what to expect (but were hoping for pie). What we found was a large rummage sale, a plant sale, games for kids, and lunch for $5, or maybe six. Very reasonable. We paid our fee and got in line. Did I take one single picture? Nope. We were hungry and forgot. But there was turkey or tofu with rhubarb chutney; the salad had roasted rhubarb as a garnish, and the dessert was rhubarb bread pudding. It was all very yummy.

We each bought a few used books. Neither one of us can resist cheap books. I think I got 5 books for $2.75, and two of them were ones I'd been specifically looking for- an almost unheard of success story. After that we went back to our tent and visited and read. We like to read out loud to each other, and I usually bring something about the local history, or some adventure. That didn't happen for this trip, but we simply enjoyed a couple of mysteries, and chilled.

Here's today's map. Tomorrow... onto the Long Trail.

	See Trail Around Middlebury
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Pi(e) is a Relationship

 
As noted the other day, there has been no blog proof of pumpkin pie. The mathematical proof of π is simple. In fact, it doesn't need any proof. It just is. It's the relationship of a circle's circumference to the diameter. It doesn't matter if the circle is large or small, if you divide the circumference by the diameter you get π. Exactly. Although there is no exactly, because it's an irrational number, a number that goes on infinitely with the division never coming out even. And it can't be represented exactly by a fraction. When we used 3.14 or 22/7 in high school, those are only approximations that are close enough for most problems.

If you want the area of a circle there's another relationship with π in it, πr².

Interestingly enough, we've just wandered into calculus. Since d=2r (diameter equals twice the radius), then the circumference = 2πr

If you integrate that "line" you get πr², and the integral of any line gives you the area under the line.

OK, I almost kept going, but I expect most readers have already had enough math fun for the day.

Pie is a relationship too. It's the relationship of fat, flour and liquid worked into a crust, and some filling, sweetener and thickening, baked to a state of perfection.



I'm not about to start complaining about sunshine, so you'll just have to deal with the dappled light in that picture. If you look to the far right, you'll see the filling in the blender. I guess that's the only not-quite-conclusive proof I can offer that it was made from scratch. The crust speaks for itself.



I've learned that a 10" pie holds twice as much filling as a 9" pie. How's that for an interesting relationship?



The relationship of the size of the pie to the number of servings is also an irrational number. No matter how big the pie is there is never enough and it doesn't come out even.

	See Rhubarb Pie See Crabapple Pie See Cherry Pie See Apple Cranberry Pie
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Kreativ Blogger Award

 
It's been a long time since I've received a pass-around blog award. Kind of fun! I received the Kreativ Blogger from Linda Ann Nickerson, at Practically at Home. Thanks, Linda!



I'm supposed to begin with answering ten questions:

1. What is your favorite song? I never can do favorite things. Hmmm. "The Happy Wanderer," or "Bed is Too Small for my Tiredness," or "Shine, Jesus, Shine," or...
2. What is your favorite dessert? This one is easier. Maybe. Moose Tracks ice cream, or rhubarb pie, or cherry pie.
3. What ticks you off? People who lie to me. Don't try it. Seriously.
4. What do you do when you’re upset? What do you think? I take a walk... it's my solution to everything.
5. What is/was your favorite pet? Well, I've blogged about this. Can't choose between Chips and Butchy Boy I.
6. Which do you prefer, black or white? Can't I have black and white? Chiaroscuro is so dramatic!
7. What is your biggest fear? Of being useless? Not sure.
8. What is your attitude mostly? Cynical- I have to fight it all the time.
9. What is perfection? "Every good and perfect gift comes from above, from the Father of Lights, in whom there is no variation or shadow of turning." James 1:17 (Phillips)- I don't usually say much about my faith on this blog, but it's one of the questions, so I answered.
10. What is your guilty pleasure? this week? Doing w...a...y too many online jigsaw puzzles.

Then I'm supposed to tell you ten random facts about myself. What? Didn't I just do that? OK, I suppose they weren't random.

1. I was once kissed by a camel. Wonder if I can find the picture that proves it?
2. I was the same height I am now in 7th grade, but 40 pounds lighter.
3. I used to have 20/10 eyesight. I miss it.
4. My least favorite color is pink, followed closely by red.
5. I'm tired of talking about me.
6. My list of "heros" is really, really short.
7. I need a shower.
8. I can't think of anything else.
9. Maggie says "hi."
10. I took all the recyling stuff to the drop-off sites this week. Big Hooray!

Now I have to pass this along to seven other blogs. Wow. This is a big project. I'm going to spread it to some blogs which are somewhat out of my inner circle of readers, just to encourage folks to look at some blogs they may not see all the time.

1. One of my favorite dog blogs is Two Greyhound Town with the adventures of Joey and Scout.
2. Chase and More is a family's journey with a much-loved son with Down Syndrome.
3. Canadian Doomer probably won't accept the award, but she and her family are working hard to live closer to the land and have a smaller "footprint."
4. Rebecca at New York Traveler because she keeps going to places I know and love.
5. Ohio Biodiversity, a serious nature-lover's blog
6. For some serious philosophy, visit my friend Fred at Photon Farms.
7. Dickster's Random Thoughts will give you anything from music to politics, to stories of his son who attends a special school.

OK... I've done about as much with this game as I can!

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Garden, Eggs, Muffins, and a New Toy

I did it all today, and I'm going to drag you along rather than pick one thing.



I spent about three hours in my flower beds. I know... it really doesn't look like much of a garden. But I am enjoying finding what's still alive. There will be another story eventually about the bare stalks in the middle.

While I was working out there, I also found these:



I've spent a lot of time hunting for what they might be. My best guess is the eggs of the milkweed bugs that I showed you last summer. If so, they are close to hatching. They start out more yellow and become deeper orange as they approach hatching. Maybe I can take a picture every day and figure it out.



My next goal was to make a double batch of rhubarb muffins, and Om helped with that project. It looks like they have frosting. It's only a little butter-sugar crumbly topping, but it really reflected the light, I guess. Most of them are already in the freezer. To accomplish that storage feat, I had to get a new toy.



My vacuum sealer was really and truly dead. The hot sealing bar no longer would heat. As we were getting ready to make the muffins, I discovered that we were out of brown sugar and that Om had just drunk the last of the milk! So I made a run to Meijer, and hopefully got all my groceries for the week too (I HATE shopping). I decided that I'd get a new sealer. I use it all the time, and we like to seal the muffins in cheap sandwich bags before stacking in a Tupperware box. It keeps them from drying out so much.

Who knew! They now make a deluxe model as well as the regular one. I stood there and read the boxes and wondered if it was worth the extra money. In the end, I bought the one with more features. I really use this gadget a lot, so perhaps more options will be worth it. I'm sure I'll do a review on Shared Reviews after I use it a little more.

Not a very focused post, but a very productive day! Thanks for coming along.

See Another Orange Bug for the Milkweed Bug

Rhubarb

Most of my US friends probably know what rhubarb is, but maybe not everyone around the world. So I thought I'd show you more than the end result.



Rhubarb is sometimes called "Pie Plant," because that's one of the best ways that it ends up. It's a leafy vegetable, although those big beautiful leaves are toxic, and it's used more like a fruit. The dried up leaves on the lower left are the ones I cut yesterday. I put the discarded leaves around the plant to act as a mulch/compost.



What you want to collect are the stalks. They look and feel sort of like thick celery. But they don't taste anything like celery! The taste is extremely tart. I can eat it raw, but not too much. It needs a little sugar with it to be palatable, but with that bit of sweetening, it's one of my favorite flavors.



Here is a stalk that is trying to go to flower. These are just buds. I'll cut that off, to keep it producing leaves and stalks.



Ah, here we are! This is my favorite use for rhubarb. Pie! Pie for breakfast, pie for dessert. Did I mention that I like pie?

See And a Wonderful Meal it Was