Rhubarb Waffles with Rhubarb Sauce and Buckwheat Pancakes

Yes, this is yet another breakfast post from Rosemary. I swear I'm not a one-trick pony. I just really like pancakes. They're easy and there are so many fun variations! So here are a couple more ways to enjoy the most important meal of the day. Pictures will come soon.

 Rhubarb Waffles with Rhubarb Sauce
Rhubarb season is upon us! At least it's upon our parents, so therefore it is on us as well. I'm always curious to find new ways (besides the old rhubarb crisp stand-by) to use up this curiously tart vegetable. 

So this is another recipezaar.com find. It's one of those few recipes that I wouldn't do that much to alter. Basically, you cook down your rhubarb with sugar for a bit, then strain out a good amount of the pulp. The pulp goes into the waffle batter much like you might use applesauce, prune puree, or a squash puree to replace fat and add moisture. You continue to cook what's left in the pan (a bit of pulp and a whole lot of yummy red syrup) to make a lovely sauce. Although, I cooked mine a couple minutes too long, so it was more of a jelly. I advise stopping short of jelly. But whether you do or not, the flavor is great and a welcome alternative to maple syrup. If you want to keep more of that rhubarb tang, cut back on the sugar a bit. I think I'll do that next time just because I enjoy that added dimension of flavor.


1 1/4 lbs rhubarb, trimmed and cut into 1/4 inch pieces (about 5 cups)
1 1/2 cups sugar (again, reduce this to get more of the tangy tartness coming through)
3 large egg whites
1 1/4 cups milk
1 1/2 tbsp vegetable or canola oil
1 3/4 cups flour (any combination of all-purpose and/or whole wheat flour should work. The original recipe only called for 1/4 cup of whole wheat, but I went for 3/4 and it was fine. Next time I'll do more.)
3 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt


1. Combine rhubarb and sugar in a medium saucepan and bring to a simmer over med-low heat. Cook until rhubarb is tender and translucent.
2. Using a slotted spoon, reserve 1 cup of rhubarb pulp for later use.
3. Boil remaining pulp and syrup over med heat until slightly thickened, about 5 minutes. (You can do the first 3 steps ahead of time and refrigerate until you're ready to make the waffles.)
4. In one bowl, whisk together your dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking powder, salt). Set aside.
5. In another bowl, whisk your egg whites until they're good and frothy. Add milk, oil, and the 1 cup of rhubarb that you set aside in step 2.
6. Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients, mixing just enough to get things wet. Don't overmix!
7. Cook in the waffle iron of your choice and serve with rhubarb sauce on top.


Buckwheat Pancakes

Using whole grain flours other than whole wheat is a great way to add variety to the diet, which improves overall quality of the diet. It's not that any other flour is necessarily more nutritious, but every grain has a unique combination of nutrients, making it higher in some and lower in others than another flour. Beyond that, each flour lends its own unique properties in the kitchen, giving different tastes and textures. So rather than trying to disguise these grains as regular wheat products, enjoy their unique flavor! Here is one of many buckwheat pancake recipes that you can try.

3/4 cup buckwheat flour (available in health foods section of grocery store, health foods store, bulk bins section of some grocery stores or online. Looks like gray sand...even on the other side of a diaper, so be careful when feeding to toddlers and babies as I learned the hard way.)
3/4 cup all-purpose or whole wheat flour (I used whole wheat and they were perfectly soft and fluffy, so I'll stick with it)
1 tbsp baking powder (if you don't like them so fluffy, add a little less)
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp sugar (granulated or brown)
1 1/2 cups milk (more for thinner batter)
1 egg
3 tbsp vegetable or canola oil

1. Mix dry ingredients (flours, baking powder, salt) in one bowl, set aside.
2. Mix wet ingredients (sugar, milk, egg, oil) in another bowl.
3. Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients. Stir just until dry ingredients are moist. There will be lumps. Leave them be. They'll cook out and if you beat until smooth, your pancakes will be tough.

Rosemary

Crepes

I just finished eating the last crepe, sorry. I was going to take a picture - I even plated it all pretty with chocolate sauce drizzled and strawberries around the side. But it was too scrumptious - I ate it before I found the camera.

The recipe I used was pretty basic:

1 cup flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
3 eggs
2 cups milk
2 tbs melted butter

All whisked together thoroughly. Pour 1-2 tbs worth of batter in a slightly oiled pan (depending on how big it is), tilting the pan around to spread the batter thinly around the pan. Flip to brown both sides.

Fill with whatever the heck you want - we had strawberries, cream, and poor man's nutella (melted chocolate and peanut butter)

Now I haven't made crepes since French class in college, so I tried to remember how to do it properly, read a couple of recipes online, and here are the tricks I learned this morning.

*Keep the pan on medium heat - make sure it's not too hot.
*Either use liberal amounts of pan spray, or have a good nonstick surface (our little pan was a little rough in the middle, so several crepes were a bit messed up)
*Use a spoon to ease up the edges and loosen the crepe so you can flip it (spatulas were too big)
*Wait until the batter looks like it's pretty much cooked all the way through before flipping to the other side.
*If you're going to do the nifty one-handed flip - make sure you work the crepe to the edge of the pan before flipping - otherwise it'll just fold in on itself and your husband will laugh.

-Thyme

First crop of the year

Please don't be jealous, oh ye who live in northern climes where there is still snow on the ground. We harvested our first vegetables from our garden this week. Radishes! Full disclosure - if it were up to me, we wouldn't have planted radishes since I'm not a big fan (another case of not really eating them when I was a kid and not having ever developed a taste for them). But we said "why not?" and today they were ready to be picked. (Whether they liked it or not - apparently there's some big slabs of concrete under our lawn/garden where there used to be a driveway, so the radishes only had so much room to grow down in before they hit rock.)



So here's what I did with them:


Radish and carrot salad:

Slice up some carrots, radishes, cucumber, and some of the radish greens (I also meant to put in some corn and red onion, but forgot). Toss it all together, coat with creamy dressing of your choice. Serve this spring-y deliciousness with whatever you want (we did Italian chicken and rosemary rice - recipes below).

Dressing (measurements approximate):
1/3 c. mayo
1/3 c. plain yogurt
1/4 c. sour cream
1/3 c. olive oil
3 tbs lemon juice
2 tsp sugar
1/4 c. parmesan cheese
pepper

Whisk together all ingredients. Add more of whatever you want to taste.

Italian chicken:

Chicken breasts
Italian dressing

Marinate chicken in dressing for 15-20 minutes, cook in pan on stove with marinade for another 15-20 or until done.

Rosemary rice:

Cook rice with rosemary and a dash of kosher salt.

-Thyme

Pumpkin Pear Carrot Bread

I am a huge fan of quick breads. I think they're a great way to use up certain types of fruits and veggies that are going bad, they're generally pretty healthy, and yet they're just a touch sweet and, well, they're bread. So today we had half a can of pureed pumpkin, 3/4 of a pear that my son wasn't going to finish, and some carrots that are getting past their prime. And since we were off to a birthday party with no present, we wanted to have some kind of offering.

So, keeping in mind that all of these measurements are estimates (I don't think I actually measured anything), here goes:

8 oz canned pumpkin
3/4 c. grated carrots
1/2 c. grated pear (apple would work great too)
1 cup nonfat plain yogurt (vanilla works good, too)
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
3 1/2 c. flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
cinnamon, allspice, and nutmeg
walnuts

Stir it all together, put in two bread pans, bake at 350F for 50 minutes or so. Eat plain or with butter. You could also toss in craisins or raisins if you want.

-Thyme

Easy Peasy Chocolate Peanut Butter Treat

This is one of my favorites. Tastes just as good as a hard-to-make candy (with less sugar, I might add) or a store-bought one. But you don't have to leave home to get it. I could post pictures, but the time to take and post them would more than double the time for this "dish".


The Recipe:

1 big ol' spoonful of peanut butter

1 big ol' spoonful of chocolate chips or m&m's (I like dark chocolate myself)

Mix in bowl and eat off spoon. Or skip the bowl and just plant the chocolate right on the peanut buttery spoon.

Rosemary

Early Easter Dinner

Mint's parents are in town so we decided to have an Easter dinner this week instead of next week.

Grilled Pork Loin


Marinated in Mint's Mystery Marinade (I think this time he used grape juice, white vinegar, rosemary, basil, crushed garlic, kosher salt, black pepper, soy sauce) and then grilled to perfection on our little grill outside. It tasted way better than it looked. That's what was left after we ate our fill.

Fruit Salad


Chopped strawberries, apples, and tangelo segments with some plain yogurt and a little bit of vanilla extract.

Challah

From smittenkitchen (that's flax seeds on it)

Creamy Lemon Squares


From The Pioneer Woman. I didn't have a lemon, though. So I used orange zest, and about half lemon and half orange juice.


-Thyme

Mmmm...asparagus

Okay, so I'd never really eaten asparagus before last year when we got it in our CSA, and it still took a couple of times for me to start appreciating it. But when I saw it for sale this last week, I decided to go ahead and get some 'cause I remember it being pretty good. I decided to use it in this recipe instead of the green beans, and I left out the ham and yummy! I just lightly sauteed the asparagus and then removed it from the pan before I made up the sauce, returning it to the pan at the end. So if you want to try asparagus but don't know a good recipe - might I suggest that one?

-Thyme