Rhubarb is one of my favorite foods. It’s tragically under-utilized, and even on the chichi epicurean websites I frequent, there are too few recipes devoted to this wonderful edible. I am always thrilled when I see rhubarb on a restaurant menu (my last visit to Marseille was selfishly timed to coincide with the reappearance of rhubarb and pistachio panna cotta on their dessert list), and even more excited when it shows up unannounced (as at Les Halles with Mom last week, when I was delighted to find chopped rhubarb in our appetizer, Vol-au-vent aux champignons sauvages et salsifis).
So it should come as no surprise that my latest muffin recipe is simply a vehicle for this brief-seasoned vegetable:
Buttermilk Rhubarb Muffins
Ingredients:
1.5 cups dark brown sugar
.25 cups vegetable oil
1 egg
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup buttermilk
1.5 cups fresh rhubarb, diced (although next time I think I’m going to add at least two cups: I love the tart, terrestrial flavor of rhubarb, and don’t want these to become brown sugar muffins)
.5 cups chopped pecans
2 cups all-purpose flour
.5 cups whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
.5 teaspoon salt
Instructions:
Mix the wet ingredients (dark brown sugar, oil, egg, vanilla, buttermilk, rhubarb).
Mix the dry ingredients (pecans, flours, soda and powder, salt).
Add dry ingredients to wet. Stir.
Bake 15-20 minutes, watching closely, as these muffins are apt to burn due to the amount of sugar in the recipe.
Eat immediately, while the rhubarb chunks are still hot and tender. Delicious!
Makes 24 small-size muffins.
Post-muffin-making, I went for my first official run with my new Nikes, Nike+ accelerometer chip, and iPod Nano. As ethically bankrupt as it may be to buy Nikes, they’re the one shoe brand that’s always fit me best, and it feels fantastic to be running in them again. I can run further, faster, and without pain, and that’s extremely important to me as I am beginning to accumulate miles and train in earnest. (Note to Nike: if you do commit to making all your products in a completely ethical, fair-trade, fully responsible way, I wouldn’t have a problem paying more for them.)
In any case, I ran an easy four miles (at 7.1 mph), with a female voice that ranges in tone from receptionist pleasant to strangely icy informing me of my progress every five minutes. I know it was a good run because I didn’t reach for my Aleve and glucosamine immediately after walking back into my apartment, and I also didn’t get exhausted enough to trigger my “Power Song” (a special feature that allows me to summon an emergency playback of Fergie’s “Labels or Love”).
