With a bundle of rhubarb stalks in my fridge I have been thinking up interesting ideas to place the ruby slices into our diets.  This pucker your lips sweet veggie turns out to be versatile beyond belief!  Of course the leaves are as toxic as the stalks are delicious so beware…

Of course sweet carb loving me opted for rhubarb bread thinking this would be just the thing to wrap our week smothered in home-made maple butter.  If you havent tried your hand at butter making yet, you really should.  Just look at all the goods we were able to produce with one pint of cream, and with some to spare for tomorrow mornings coffee none the less!  It really is a simple process.  Place the cream in a jar with a lid screwed on nice and tight and shake.  Shake.

And shake some more.  

Soon it will start to get frothy, then it will feel like you are not able to shake it anymore, both because your arms are burning like they would be in an intense Pilates class, and also because the cream has become so thick it feels like it’s hardly moving.  Press on.  Not long after this it will start to be a thick clump sloshing about and the sides of the jar will appear clean and clear.  Shake it a bit more and the buttermilk will start to appear as well.  Drain the liquid into a cup saving it for some pancakes or something along that line.  Then “wash” the butter with cold water until the water runs clear.  Sprinkle in a little salt and your laughing.  Add a touch of maple syrup and stir vigorously for some serious enjoyment or like in the other jar pictured below stir in some chopped sage.  This should be just the thing for some pork chops, corn on the cob, rice, beans, you name it.

Oh butter, and sweet yummy bread.  The combination couldn’t be sweeter.