Rhubarb, glorious rhubarb

Sorry for the lousy quality in the photo above. I took the photo with my cell phone as my point and shoot camera is already in the camper for the big weekend at Lake Rathbun near Centerville, Iowa. Can you believe this rhubarb plant? It has been harvested a number of times this year and this haul left behind more than you see on the table. I have the most insane rhubarb plant in the Midwest. I have a recipe for what sounds like a rhubarb dacquiri, but I haven't made any yet. Other than that, I have one recipe for which to use rhubarb, but since the guys at work will eat that recipe's end result, I decided to cut it all up. It will go in the freezer and I will make rhubarb cake and dacquiris this winter.

Here's the recipe. It couldn't be simpler.

Use a box of cake mix - spice, yellow, pineapple supreme, whatever. Prepare the cake mix as directed on the box using one less egg than the mix requires. In a lightly greased 9x13 pan, spread 3-6 cups of chopped rhubarb. Cover the rhubarb with 1/2 to 3/4 cup of sugar. This all depends on your tolerance for the tart bite of rhubarb. Six cups to 3/4 cup sugar is a little tart, so go by that and adjust to your taste. Pour the cake mix over the rhubarb and bake as directed on the box. That's what the recipe says, but I always have to bake it longer and so I would just be prepared with a couple toothpicks. Stick the toothpick into the center of the cake and if it comes out with batter on it, it isn't done.

Let me also add that the leaves are poisonous. They have oxalic acid in them.

I have read that you would have to eat a plateful of leaves to hurt yourself, but I have plant-eating cats in the house and so those leaves are removed immediately, put into a bag and placed back outdoors without delay. Even today for the short time it took to snap that photo , two cats wanted to investigate. (You can see, can't you, that it was a quick photo shoot, right? See the fuzzy, out-of-focus quality only I can provide?)