Ugly pancakes

First, I must apologize for being absent so long from this blog. Yes, there is lots to write about in summer -- Montana farmers markets are opening left and right, and people are gardening and cooking and creating food like nobodys business.

But I am busy finishing my guide to Montana farmers markets, which will be available within about two weeks. At last! You will be able to purchase it online at my website, which is just about ready to be unveiled, too.

Second, I must apologize to my pancakes for calling them ugly. But in all honesty, they do not come up to restaurant or fancy-pants gourmet standards. Perhaps homely would be a better way to describe them. No matter, they are delicious!

The recipe comes from A Little Book of Rhubarb Recipes, compiled by the Pondera Arts Council in Conrad. In June Conrad hosts a rhubarb festival during their Whoop-Up Trail Days celebration. This year over a hundred pies were entered in the dessert contest, and the largest rhubarb leaf was 30 inches by 30 inches. Thats a big rhubarb plant.

The cookbook is worth buying if you like rhubarb, and I suggest that the recipes would win over someone who does not like rhubarb. I got permission to include a recipe for rhubarb bread pudding in my market guidebook, and I went completely nuts when I tested it and then tasted it. That recipe would definitely win over anyone who doesnt like bread pudding.

So when I got to the end of the rhubarb in my own garden this week, I flipped through the cookbook to find some way to use about a cup of tiny rhubarb stalks. I found the following, another winner. The recipe says the pancakes taste like "rhubarb cake, only less sweet," and that is an accurate description. I added a bit of honey on top of the warm pancakes, and they were just right.

Rhubarb Spice Pancakes

To two cups of pancake batter, fold in:

3/4 cup finely diced rhubarb

1/2 cup applesauce

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ginger

Pretty good looking rhubarb/applesauce/spice mixture

To order a copy of A Little Book of Rhubarb Recipes, send e-mail to kitin27@msn.com.