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Springtime Recipes

This Rhubarb Cornmeal Cake is easy to make fruity cake, perfect for tea time or a nice end to a meal. It's a great way to enjoy the local rhubarb bounty.

Ingredients

2 lbs of rhubarb – fresh or frozen – washed and chopped into ½ inch pieces (you could also use other fruits like cranberries, apples, pears, plums, peaches, figs, grapes etc)

½ cup honey (or brown or cane sugar)

Group A - dry ingredients

2 cups all purpose flour ( I used a mix of True Grains bakery’s sifted flour and organic kamut flour)
½ cup polenta or corn meal
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger

Group B

½ cup butter
¾ cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Group C

1 cup whole milk yogurt

Instructions:
1-Mix fruit and honey together and let sit for about 1 hour to macerate. That’s fancy schmancy talk for suck the juices out of the fruit.
2- Preheat over 350F
3-In a medium sized bowl, combine together Group A (dry) ingredients
4-In a mixing bowl, cream together butter, sugar. Once creamed well, add eggs and vanilla = Group B
5-With a spatula or wooden spoon, mix in Group A & C into Group B(butter mixture) alternating between A & C. Combine until it almost just combined. Do NOT overmix
6-Add in macerated fruit and fold in. The batter will look like the dog’s breakfast. Don’t worry, it’ll bake up fine.
7-Pour into a prepared 9-10 inch round pan (I used a 10 inch springform pan) and bake for 40-50 minutes.
8- Check with toothpick for doneness. Let cool on rack and enjoy!

Cranberry - Apple Sauce

copyright 2006 Beth Yim and Meza Health Systems, Inc.

This recipe is so easy and quick. You can make it as a tasty, healthy alternative to syrup or jam on pancakes or toast or as a delicious fruit mix for plain yoghurt. It will keep for up to one week in the fridge, (if it doesn't get eaten first!)

2 tablespoon water
1 1/2 cups fresh or frozen cranberries(organic)
1 peeled, chopped red delicious apple (organic)
1/2 cup honey or to taste

Add water, cranberries and apple in medium saucepan over low/medium heat. Stir as the cranberries melt to prevent sticking. When cranberries are soft use a hand held blender to puree the fruit. Add honey and mix well.

Local cranberries can be found at the Yellow Point Cranberry farm and at your local farmer's market. Locally grown apples can be found everywhere from your local grocery store, farmer's market and orchards like Westwood orchard at 170 Westwood Road. There are many wonderful local providers for honey. Shady Mile has a good selection. Again, farmer's markets are another source for this sweet treat!

Check out 'CRAVE', our daily blog, for more 100 Mile Diet recipes and information.