rhubarb rhapsodies

Having lots of rhubarb in the garden I decided that it was time to use more of it. I made two rhubarb recipes today. The first is a cake courtesy of Nina and she was very kind and converted the recipe from metric for me. The conversion is:

2 cups finly chopped rhubarb
1/2 cup of hazelnuts (or almonds), ground roughly
1/2 cup brown suger
7 T. melted margarine
1/2 cup milk
2 cups plain flour
2 ts cinnamon
1 ts vanilla sugar
2 ts baking soda

I used ground almonds, forgot the cinnamon and doubled the recipe so I could have one for now and one for later. I must have done something right because mine came out looking just like the picture she posted. We'll be eating it tomorrow, hopefully it will taste as good as it looks.

The second rhubarb goodness was rhubarb strawberry preserves since I had all those strawberries from the farm:

2 1/2 pounds rhubarb, de-stringed and diced
2 1/2 pounds sugar
1 1/3 pounds strawberries, de-hulled and halved

Let soak 3 hours

add juice of one lemon

bring to a boil, boil 20 minutes or until jelly point is reached. Jar and process 10 minutes in a hot water bath. Makes 8 8-ounce jars.

It looks so red and juicy and smelled fabulous when I was making it. The tastings off the ladle while I was ahem cleaning it were delicious. I love having this stuff in the house, it tastes so much better than what you buy in the store.

I love the fact that the rhubarb is from my own garden and the strawberries were fresh picked today from the local organic farm. It really doesn't get any better than that, unless you happen to have a lemon tree in the back yard.