Memorial Day Rhubarb Craziness

Yes, I know it has been a looooooong time since this poor blog received any attention, and to just get it out there and over with  - ITS MY FAULT.  Feel free to stalk us on facebook, twitter, instagram, etsy, etc if you want to look further at what's gone on for 2+ years.  Suffice to say life has been quite full!

But I'm still me and I still like to do creative stuff when I can and share it when I think it's worth sharing -  so here you go.

One of the things that has happened in 2+ years is that the hubs has perfected the art of growing RHUBARB in southeast Alabama.  You heard me right.  What we were told wouldn't grow here is growing in abundance a few steps from my back door.  Lots and lots of it!  And besides listing it for farmer's market sales I get to make pies, crisps, jams and today . . .  (drum roll please)  COOKIES.

I found this amazing recipe over at Little Dairy on the Prairie.  And with a 5 gallon bucket of the stuff begging to be dealt with this afternoon I figured "why not?"  It gave me the opportunity to:
   1. Use rhubarb in a new ay
   2. Try chopping rhubarb in the Ninja  (a most awesome birthday present from the hubs)
   3.  Try mixing dough in the Ninja
   4.  Spoil the hubs a little.
   5.  Get this baking bug out of my system

So here are the results:

LOVE using the Ninja -  it made so much work go faster and easier.  LOVE the cookies.  You'd never know there's a full 2 cups of rhubarb in the recipe, or any at all for that matter.  Rhubarb blends well with anything you put it with and in this venue add both fiber (Bonus!)  and moistness.  I did make some changes to suit our own preferences and if I make them again will do some things differently as well:  use semi-sweet chips instead of Toll House, use less and/or different sweetener, and whole wheat flour.  If my Bonnie is coming I'll switch it up even more to make it dairy and gluten free.

Here's the recipe with my Hortonized changes in italics:

• 2 cups rhubarb, diced   (I diced them REAL fine in the Ninja bowl)
• 2 eggs
• 2 cups sugar, divided    (Brown Sugar.  Wish I had used less)
• 1 cup real butter, softened
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 3½ cups flour
• 2½ cups quick cooking oats   (Was out.  Used Old Fashioned Oats)
• 2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1½ teaspoons cinnamon  (thought that was a lot so only used 1 tsp)
• 3 cups chocolate chips  (Chocolate attack!  Used half this amount)
• 1 cup raisins (optional)   (1/2 cup)
• 1/2 cup cranberries
• 1/2 cup sour dehydrated cherries (to take the edge off the sweet Toll House chips and what I thought was too much sugar)
• 3/4 cup mixed pecans and walnuts

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Cream eggs, butter, 1½ cups sugar and vanilla extract until fluffy. About 2 minutes.  In Ninja
3. Add diced rhubarb and ½ cup sugar in blender. Blend until pureed. Pour into creamed ingredients. Mix together.  Forget that, I just added the sugar and rhubarb to the stuff in the  Ninja bowl.  Worked beautifully.
4. Sift flour, salt, soda and cinnamon into creamed mixture. Add quick oats. Mix until incorporated. Add chocolate chips and raisins. Mix together.  I did this backward.  I mixed the dry stuff and poured the rhubarb/butter/sugar stuff into it and folded it all together, then added the chips, fruit and nuts.
5. Bake for 8 minutes.  Mine were nowhere near done at 8 minutes.  Using stone may have had something to do with that but it typically took 11-12 minutes.