Sunday, March 24, 2019

March 24, 2019 Spring is here- for real

It seems like it was only yesterday when there was snow and ice everywhere.
Last week had the arrival of the first snowdrops.
This week all sorts of little bulbs have come out.
There are snowdrops and winter aconite and the early crocuses that do not taste good.
If you think about it, tasting bad to bunnies or deer would be a survival trait in an early spring bulb.


The winter picture contest is coming to a conclusion. This week you will pick between the 3 winning pictures in the last 3 weeks.

Last week the  winner was the orange asclepias.





It was an incredibly tight vote this past week. Any one of 4 pictures were within striking distance until the very end.

Here were the details.




So here are the 3 final contestants.


#1 Double Bloodroot






#2 Purple Siberian Iris






#3 Orange asclepias






There you have your 3 finalists. Pick the one which will be the picture of the year.



Bonus Section/ Right now



The aconite is blooming along with the early purple crocuses.






























Here is something special. This is a cousin of the winter aconite. It is Shibateranthis pinnadifidia. I got this plant 9 years ago. Last year there was a single flower. That was the first time it had bloomed.
Yesterday there was this nice little clump.
There is something about this year's springtime that promises much.
It will come very quickly now - I think.


Julia's recipe
Rhubarb Coffee Cake

Soon it will be spring, and spring means (among other things) rhubarb. I make several desserts with rhubarb - pie of several kinds and upside-down cake. Here is another rhubarb confection - a sheet cake with a cinnamon sugar topping. This recipe came from Sue, an old bookclub friend who reports she got the recipe from her late mother-in-law. A time-honored recipe. Make this cake when rhubarb arrives or as I did, with some rhubarb from the freezer, in the hope of spring to come.


Here are the players: 2-1/4 cups white sugar, 3/4 cup shortening or margarine (or softened butter), 2 eggs, 1-1/2 cups buttermilk (or 1 cup plain yogurt mixed with 1/2 cup milk), 3 cups all purpose flour, 1-1/2 teaspoon baking soda, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 2 cups of diced or thinly sliced rhubarb plus cinnamon sugar made from 2 tablespoons of sugar mixed with 1 teaspoon of cinnamon.

I used shortening because I had it, and we don't use it much anymore (Philip makes pie crust with butter only, and very good they are). Butter or margarine would be fine.




I measured the shortening in one of those plunger type measuring devices (with measurements on the outside of the tube). If you don't have one and you want to measure shortening, you can always use Archimedes principle of displacement - a rare practical application of stuff learned in school.

To measure 3/4 cup of shortening in that way, put 1-1/4 cups of water into a 2 cup measure. Add shortening until the water level reaches 2 cups - voila! You have 3/4 cup of shortening, only slightly damp when you pour off the water. But I digress.

I put the shortening in a bowl, added the sugar and mixed the two together with an electric mixer.



In my experience, "creaming" butter and sugar does not necessarily lead to a single homogenous mass, but sort of big flakes of mixed together matter. Which is what happened here and then I added the eggs and mixed some more.

I added the soda and salt and 1 cup flour, mixed that in and added 1/2 cup of the yogurt/milk mixture. More mixing. Then another cup of flour, followed by another 1/2 cup of the liquid, followed by the last of the flour and the last of the liquid. At that point, I had a thick batter.

I set it aside for a minute, and I used no-stick spray to lube up a 9" x 13" pan. I turned the oven on to 350 degrees.



Then I stirred the chopped up rhubarb into the batter with a spoon. I had 2 cups of frozen chopped up rhubarb. The recipe called for 2-1/2 cups, but alas I had 2. Which worked out fine. If perchance you use frozen rhubarb, let it thaw out enough to chop up into bits - you don't want a brick of rhubarb, but you don't want it to be completely melted either. Fresh rhubarb, of course, is just fine.





A note about the milk/yogurt mixture. The recipe called for buttermilk. I do not have buttermilk on hand. I have found that a mixture of yogurt and milk is a fine substitute - the yogurt providing the acidity and thickness and the milk thinning it out. If you have buttermilk, use it!



I spread the batter in the prepared pan and sprinkled it with the cinnamon sugar. It took longer than I expected to bake - about 55 minutes. Start checking after 45 minutes. A toothpick or bamboo skewer or other cake tester should come out clean (that is, with no batter clinging to it) when stuck into the middle of the cake.

It appears that we forgot to take a picture of the finished product. It was delicious. We took it to our office, where it was polished off in a couple of days.



Odds and ends
The contest is coming to an end.
Spring is really here.
The daffodils are on their way.

It has been a long several weeks.
The garden is now providing comfort and solace.
If you are in the neighborhood please come by.

Philip

1 comment:

Anonymous said...


Here I am torturing myself. Should it be the bloodroot or theasciepias, and of course they are being blown away (so far) by that purple thing. Today is the first warming day for a while in NYC. Glad that you are finally feeling Spring.