From the rhubarb patch...

As a kid, the arrival of spring always meant lilacs, strawberry pie and one of mom's good rhubarb desserts. Now, though, we don't have a lilac bush, strawberry patch or rhubarb growing wild.

Instead, Ben and I enjoy Goshen's Mill Race Center Farmers Market and our CSA membership. (It has dual benefits: at the beginning of the year we feel all altruistic as we give a big chunk of change to local farmers and support small-scale, mostly organic agriculture. Then throughout the year as we pick up our basket and fill it each week with whatever we want from the different stands, we feel like we are getting everything for free.) Last week, with another opportunity to provide break for my co-workers, and rhubarb in full bloom, I headed over to the market 5 minutes before they closed and was able to get a couple of pounds of beautiful pink and green stalks from the only stand selling it. My mom had three or four rhubarb recipes that we just loved, but my favorite to make now is this easy Nutty Rhubarb Muffins recipe. No, it isn't from MCC:FFR, but it could be (there are no ingredients that one can't pronounce). And with my pounds of the vegetable (according to my internet research), I have now doubled the recipe twice and have eaten four muffins today alone. (This is as close as a Menno comes to confession.) I love it because it is a versatile food too - serving quite well as breakfast, snack or dessert. Ben, our resident quasi-health nut, is concerned about the large amount of sugar needed in rhubarb recipes to counteract its sourness. He claims he only ate two today.

Nutty Rhubarb Muffins

Makes 1 dozen
Bake at 375 degrees

3/4 c. brown sugar
1/2 c. buttermilk
1/3 c. vegetable oil
1 egg
1 t. vanilla
2 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt
1 c. diced rhubarb
1/2 c. chopped nuts

Topping:
1/4 c. brown sugar
1/4 c. chopped nuts
1/2 t. ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a small bowl mix sugar, egg, vanilla, oil and buttermilk. In a
medium-sized bowl, mix flour, baking soda and salt. Stir sugar mixture into flour mixture and blend until
evenly moisteneed. Stir in rhubarb and nuts. Spoon into well-greased and floured muffin tins. Stir
together topping ingredients and springkle evenly over the top of each muffin. Bake about 20 minutes or until
center springs up when touched.

(Photo credit - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Rhubarb_01.jpg)