Aaagh!! I said I would try harder to keep up with blogging and that a new recipe was coming soon, and that was a week ago! Once again... its been a busy week. Two sets of company (one overnight, the other just for dinner) and a last-minute trip to the lake. It's been fun.
Anyway, on with the recipe.
Rhubarb season was in full swing several weeks ago when I tried this recipe, and strawberry season was not far behind. A match made in heaven. Such delicious pies! But pies are a lot of work, and I don't have time for keeping up with this stinkin' blog, much less making pies. Laura told me of this delicious recipe she just tried and Denny stole some rhubarb from his neighbor for me. It makes a 9 x 13 pan, but Laura cautioned me to make it in two separate pans or else the 9 x 13 would disappear quickly, and I would be responsible. Laura is very wise, and I listened to her. Mmmm was it good. I froze the second pan, but that didn't last long... I pulled it out for Company #1 this week, because it was haunting me from the deep freeze in the basement.
Start by cutting up your strawberries. Did you know that I love slicing strawberries? I do. I don't really care for chopping, slicing, paring, mincing, or dicing anything else, but strawberries are extremely gratifying.
Oh, and this is my chosen helper for the project. Tico.
You need 3 (ish) cups of strawberries, sliced.
Cut up your rhubarb. Actually-- if you are like me-- cut the rhubarb then the strawberries, saving the best for last. Rhubarb isn't as fun to cut. I don't know why... there's no explanation for me.
Chop, chop, chop.
Bam! 3 (ish) cups.
Throw it all in a bowl (the strawberries are buried under there because I made the strawberries-then-rhubarb mistake. The order in which you chop the produce has no effect whatsoever on the final product, btw).
Add a little flour so the juice thickens.
Plop!
And some sugar. If you would like it to be a little more tart, put less sugar in. I found that this amount of sugar almost totally counteracted the tartness of the rhubarb.
Swish. (That's the sound sugar makes as it falls into the bowl.)
Like I said, I put mine in two separate pans. Do you like that metal one? Its very shiny and new. This was actually the first time I used it.
In a medium bowl place flour...
...Some oats (this changes it from junk food to healthy)...
...and some brown sugar. Contrary to popular belief, this does NOT return it to junk food status. Just as brown rice is healthier than white rice, brown sugar is healthier than white sugar. At least that's my opinion.
Then cut in butter. Ok, I think we're officially back to junk food.
Cover the top with the crumb topping.
Then bake it! I know that now is the part where I am supposed to show you the finished project, all hot and bubbly from the oven but... I can't. Here is my list of excuses.
1. The lighting in my kitchen was not right when I took them out of the oven, so I figured I would take a picture of the one we didn't break into the next day when I had natural light. Because obviously all of the pictures posted on my blog are perfect and have perfect lighting. I couldn't mess up my perfect record!
2.We (read: I) ate through the first pan frightfully fast, so I had to get the second pan in the freezer, stat. I knew it would also disappear, and my derrière would be suspiciously larger.
3. When I got the second pan back out of the freezer this week, it was all frozen and not looking very good right away. I would wait until I heated it up for our company and then take the picture.
4. I almost burned it, but I didn't. But I was desperate to eat it. And I didn't want to dally in the kitchen too long, because our guests were sharing with us about how God called then to Africa to be missionaries. Somehow, when you are hearing about things like that, taking pictures of your food doesn't seem so important.
All that to say, this is all I can offer as a "final product." But take my word that it is delicious warm from the oven with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on it.
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