Cooking Done Light

John and I get along well most of the time, but there is one subject that we always battle over, and it drives me insane. When it comes to food, John is one of the most unadventurous people that I know. He will flat out refuse to try something new. I, on the other hand, will try anything once. If I don’t like it, I just won’t eat it again – and if I do like it, well I just broadened my menu options!

The point of this whole thing is, that I had never before tried rhubarb. I’ve seen it, I’ve heard about it, I’ve just never tried it. So yesterday on a trip to the store, I picked some up and decided to “give it a whirl”. The verdict: It’s has a pleasant, subtly sweet, light flavor. I decided to use it in a strawberry muffin recipe that I have been working on, because I thought that the flavors would compliment each other nicely. They came out wonderfully – moist, sweet and delicious!

I wrote this recipe to make 12 jumbo (or 24 standard) muffins, because I figured that if you do actually decide to pick up some rhubarb (which I hope you will), you can make a big batch of muffins and freeze them to use up the majority of the rhubarb that you buy.

1 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour

1/2 cup all purpose flour

3/4 cup sugar

3 1/4 teaspoons baking powder

3 eggs

3/4 cup skim milk

1/4 cup oil

1/4 cup fat free sour cream

2 cups chopped rhubarb

1 cup chopped fresh strawberries

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees and generously grease a 12 cup jumbo (or 24 cup standard) muffin tin with nonstick cooking spray.

Sift the flours, sugar, and baking powder together in a large bowl. In a separate, smaller bowl whisk together eggs, milk, oil and sour cream. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix until just moistened. Add the rhubarb and strawberries and mix until just incorporated.

Bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean.

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Makes 12 jumbo (or 24 standard) muffins. Per jumbo muffin: 242 calories, 3 g total fat, less than 0.5 g saturated fat, 0 g trans fat, 32 g carbohydrates, 3 g fiber, 5 g added sugar, 4 g protein, 12 mg sodium, 2 mg cholesterol