rhubarb pie

now, i'm not one to go BUYING strange, red celery with poisonous leaves (seriously-- don't. eat. the. leaves.) but we got my parents' csa share this week and i definitely AM one to freeze up when i'm doing something new and refuse to deviate, so... the rhubarb came home with us. what do you DO with rhubarb, i asked myself, and then i remembered little house on the prairie -- only the actual story probably came from the first four years or those happy golden years -- and bought a prefab pie crust.

ingredients:

• frozen pie crust
• 4 cups (a regular bunch that you'd see at a store) rhubarb, cubed
• 1 3/4 cups sugar
• 1/2 cup flour

prep:

• preheat oven to 450*
• defrost pie crust (or make your own... whatever)
• cube rhubarb (which the joy of cooking only BARELY deigns to call "fruit")

actual cooking:

• unroll first crust into pie plate, perforate with a fork
• combine sugar, flour and rhubarb in a bowl
• pour filling mixture into pie shell
• unroll top crust over filling, crimp & perforate
• bake (on a cookie sheet-- preferably rimmed) at 450* for 10 minutes
• decrease heat to 350* and continue baking 35-40 minutes

it's tastes like cherry pie-- honest! sugary and tart and pretty delicious.

chocolate cake with coffee frosting

kevin's birthday cake was a bakers chocolate one-bowl chocolate cake. it took, frankly, too damn long. in the future, i'll probably stick with the joy of cooking's "lightning cake" (or blitz-cake, as we call it).

ingredients (cake):

• 3/4 cup (1.5 sticks) butter
• 6 ounces (1 cup chips) semi-sweet chocolate
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 1 1/4 cups water

ingredients (frosting):

• 1/3 cup skim milk
• 1/8 cup instant coffee
• 6 cups confectioner's sugar
• 3/4 cups (1.5 sticks) butter, softened

prep:

• grease & flour 2 8" circle or square cake pans
• preheat over to 350*

actual cooking:

• in a small, microwave safe bowl, nuke frosting milk for 1.5 minutes
• add coffee and stir until dissolved
• set aside
• in a large, microwave safe bowl nuke cake butter & chocolate for 2 minutes
• stir until melted & combined
• add sugar
• add eggs & vanilla
• add 1/2 cup flour, salt & baking soda
• add remaining flour & water (alternating)
• pour batter into cake pans
• bake for 35 minutes
• combine softened butter and confectioners sugar
• add coffee-milk by the tablespoon until desired consistency is reached

monkey bread

i bet there's a better way to make monkey bread, but this one was SO EASY (especially since i had some slave labor to roll the dough into balls and coat it in cinnamon sugar) that i need to the the interwebs about it.

ingredients:

• 3 cans of buttermilk biscuits
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup butter or margarine
• 1 tbs cinnamon

prep:

• grease a bundt pan
• preheat oven to 350*

actual cooking:

• mix granulated sugar and cinnamon in a bowl
• melt butter, add brown sugar and bring to a boil (keep warm)
• cut (or tear) each biscuit into quarters
• in small batches, lightly shape the pieces into balls, roll in sugar mixture and add to the pan (next time, i would drizzle some of the butter mixture and some more cinnamon sugar on each layer)
• cover with butter mixture
• bake for 35-40 minutes
• let cool for 10-20 minutes

this was a roaring success. which is good, because the cheesecake i made that night had the texture of tapioca pudding... and i'm not sure why. whoops.