My mom has never had a green thumb. However, the one thing she could always manage to grow is rhubarb. I grew up hating rhubarb. How could something that was supposed to be a fruit be so sour? And it has the texture of celery. It’s definitely not my dream fruit.

Of course, wouldn’t you know it, I married someone who absolutely loves the stuff. So, I’ve been forced to learn how to cook and bake with it. My personal favorite thing to make with rhubarb is jam. I use a ratio of one-third rhubarb to two-thirds strawberries. I can’t even taste the rhubarb in it because I cook the rhubarb down, so there are no rhubarb chunks in the jam.

I received a nice mature rhubarb plant from my mother as a gift when we built our house a few years ago, and wouldn’t you know it, I’ve already harvested two gallons of rhubarb off of that plant and it’s not even June. So, I need to find something else to make with this rhubarb besides just a few jars of jam.

While I was searching for a rhubarb recipe, I ran across this one and just knew that my hubby would love it. It combines cookies and rhubarb, two things he absolutely loves.

Cream Cheese Rhubarb Cookies

1 cup butter flavored Crisco

1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar

2 eggs

3 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup coconut flakes

1 1/2 cup diced rhubarb (fresh not frozen)

1/4 cup diced walnuts

1 tub cream cheese frosting

Toss the butter flavored Crisco and brown sugar into a mixer and beat until creamy. Add the eggs and whisk until combined. Turn the mixer off.

Sprinkle the flour evenly over the creamed mixture and then sprinkle the baking soda and the salt over the flour. Turn the mixer on low and gently mix until combined so that the flour doesn’t blow out of the top of the bowl.

Pour the coconut flakes, rhubarb chunks and walnuts into the dough and fold them into the dough.

Scoop the dough by rounded tablespoonfuls onto a cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes. Let the cookies cool a little bit and then frost with the cream cheese frosting.

Joy Larson is a mother of four boys, graduate of the University of Montana, animal lover and writer

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