Rhubarb Cobbler

Rhubarb has always fascinated me. It looks like pink celery, and it tastes so good in pie. It's amazing. If you have ever had rhurbarb, its was probably in strawberry rhubarb pie. When I was in high school, I really wanted to grow rhubarb in our yard because I had heard that it grows really well in cold places like Siberia and Wyoming. My dad never really got on board with that idea, maybe because he only knew of one thing to do with it. But I have always been sure that there is so much more to do with it, I just need a lot to experiment with.

Now, whenever I see good fresh looking rhubarb at the grocery store or the farmers market, I buy a couple of stalks and either use them immediately, or cut them up and freeze them for future use. It freezes very nicely, just spread out the pieces on a cookie sheet so they aren't all in a big clump and then put them in a freezer bag so that you can measure them easily when you use them later. Elise, of my favorite food blog, simplyrecipes.com recently posted a bunch of great looking rhubarb recipes, I haven't had a chance to try them all, because I keep getting stuck on this rhubarb cobbler recipe which I want to share with you today.

A couple of years ago I saw this recipe for rhubarb cobbler online, I don't remember where or I would post the reference, and it is awesome. We tried making it in the dutch oven with my family with the same dumping method you use to make peach cobbler with canned peaches, but it didn't have enough liquid in it to make the cakey part turn into cake, and it was way too sweet, plus the melty wax from the everlasting candles we put in for Motherdear's birthday, and overall wastn't the best cobbler experience ever, so that was kind of a bummer. So here is the tried and true method that you do in a cake pan in the oven.

Rhubarb Cobbler

3 c. chopped rhubarb

3/4 c. brown sugar
4 Tbsp. butter, melted
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 c. milk
1 1/2 c. flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 c. sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, butter a 9 x 11 inch pan. Combine rhubarb and brown sugar in a medium size bowl, mix well and set aside. In a large bowl, combine 3 tablespoons of the melted butter, eggs, milk, flour baking powder, vanilla, and sugar. Beat with a heavy whisk until a smooth batter is formed. Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Spread the rhubarb mixture over the batter in an even layer. Drizzle with the remaining melted butter, bake for 40 minutes, maybe a little longer if you want the middle not quite as gooey as it looks in the picture above. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream, if desired.

Variations:

*Add 2 or more teaspoons (to taste) minced fresh ginger root to the rhubarb/sugar mixture, prepare and devour as usual.
*Add orange zest and up to 1/4 c. orange juice to rhubarb/sugar mixture (decrease amount of sugar if you are adding juice), prepare and devour as usual.
*I kind of think that the amount of sugar in the rhubarb part can be reduced a little, as you like it. It is important to have some sugar, because it helps make it liquidy, which seems important for cobbler, and rhubarb is very very tart on its own. But you may want to reduce the sugar if it sounds like too much for you.