As promised, a couple recipes and a few garden pics.
Chocolate Chip Rhubarb Cake
For the Cake:
1-1/2 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
1 egg
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup buttermilk, sour cream or yogurt
(I used sour cream)
1-3/4 cups rhubarb, finely chopped
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
Topping:
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 cup chopped pecans
(I omitted ... didn't have any :P)
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup brown sugar
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a quart-size baking dish. In a large mixing bowl, cream together the brown sugar and butter. Add the egg and vanilla, blending well.
In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda and salt. Add the flour mixture to the creamed mixture alternately with the sour cream/buttermilk/yogurt, beating well after each addition. Stir in the rhubarb and chocolate chips. Pour into the prepared baking pan.
Combine the topping ingredients. Sprinkle over the cake batter. Bake 35 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out batter free. Let cool in pan on a wire rack. Cut into squares. Serve slightly warm or at room temperature.
Review:
Amelia loved it, but not as much as Rhubarb Pie nor as much as Rhubarb Cake. I thought ... chocolate chips....how can you go wrong?? It was good but not extraordinary. On to the next one....
Rhubarb Cream Cheese Pie
Pastry for one-crust pie, unbaked
3 tablespoons cornstarch
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp grated orange rind, minced
2 cups sugar, divided
4 cups rhubarb, thinly sliced
1 - 8oz. pkg cream cheese, softened
2 eggs room temperature
1 cup sour cream
(omitted due to husband asking not to put it on)
1/4 cup toasted silvered almonds (omitted...didn't have)
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Line a 9-inch pie pan with the unbaked pastry. In a large saucepan, combine the cornstarch, salt, cinnamon, grated orange rind, and 1-1/2 cups sugar. Add the rhubarb, mixing well. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, for 8 to 10 minutes or until boiling and thickened. Pour the mixture into the unbaked pie crust and bake for 10 minutes.
In large mixing bowl, beat together the cream cheese, eggs and remaining 1/2 cup sugar until smooth. Pour over the pie and return to oven. Reduce the heat to 325 and bake for another 35 minutes or until set. Remove pie from oven and let cool on a wire rack. Chill in the refrigerator for a couple of hours. Spread the sour cream over the top of the pie and sprinkle the toasted almonds.
Review:
Amelia ate it. Certainly not as tasty as a straight rhubarb pie. I had reservations about the sour cream on top and asked Rob what he thought. Under no circumstances was I to put the sour cream on the pie. So, I didn't. The cream cheese topping was good enough :) I did run into a drippy mess when pouring the cream cheese onto the pie...not sure why.
Trying a few others from Every Which Way with Rhubarb and will certainly share them.
On to the Garden:
I sometimes hesitate to post any garden pics as I feel I am not a gardener :P I just ask people what they do. Sometimes things work...sometimes not and I go with whatever works...easily. I don't study.
Always had a basket at the front door.
Always have Fuschia and White Licorice in 2 hanging baskets near the front door. 
Always have annuals in 4 pots scattered around the front. Used to be on the back deck but still working on the deck. I use a different variety each year. Amelia loved the orange ones and wanted to cut them for her flower arranging sooooo badly...I let her take a few. Not ecstatic about the color combo this year, still, all did well.
Amelia's front garden basket did well too:
Nasturtiums...
They kept getting bigger and bigger and I kept wondering...where are the flowers???
Then...bam.
Amelia's nasturtiums in pots on her cottage did wonderful as well and I forgot to take a recent one of them and they have since faded, but I am grabbing the bulb seeds to replant next year. Did well once again ... as they were the seeds from the previous years crop!
Veggies:
The butter crunch lettuce in the raised bed did great. The peas here did not.
While the peas in the pots did GREAT and the lettuce was just ok in the pots (Alaska Lettuce in the pots though). Go figure.
Note: Amelia will only eat peas if she picks them from the vine and eats them or if she picks them and puts them on her plate. Again...go figure.
Rhubarb after a few pickings.
Rhubarb with the fern. All are on the dark side of the house. I will never bother them as they do great without my help.
Finally...rasperberries:
Doing great and did not get a photo of 8 new plants that our neighbors brought over and am half way done in replanting them. Woo hoo...lots of raspberries for raspberry loving Amelia.
Raspberries are in the distance and now will be going all the way up the side thanks to our new plants!
Lots of Columbine, Thyme, Snow in Summer and Chives in the upper terrace and the Strawberries are coming along in the lower section (with a few wayward thyme plants down there). Next year will be adding a third terrace. Rob weed whipped further down the mountain and I went out and clipped a bunch of bushes to make way for a truck of dirt to be delivered next year. Not sure what will go in there!
Might ask our neighbors if I could do a post on their gardens...they do amazing work for a mountain side home! While I am back East too will post on all the gardens there.
Not a post unless Amelia is in it somewhere.
Went to a Birthday Party at the bowling alley this week:
and words to live by at the Bakery at Fred Meyers:
Next time: a little photo shoot, a polar bear rug and, if completed, my 3 counter stools makeover. I purchased all for $10.
