hanky-panky with the rhubarb and strawberries ::::
This is a PG-13 story. Unless you are age 13 or over, I suggest you avert your eyes. Ask an adult if you can surf this page. I’m playing matchmaker this week, for some over-eager clients. I can’t even post a finished dish until the end. It’s just too obscene.
See, my strawberries decided to cuddle up with my rhubarb:
I know! I felt the same way when I saw the rhubarb in the market: perfect for the strawberries. I actually squeeed at the sight of the rhubarb. Yes, squeeed. They were, and likely will be the only, most perfect, ruby jewel-toned, delicately curved rhubarb stalks I have ever seen. The berries, while not the most perfect strawberries I have tasted, for being out of season, they were pretty pretty.
Some of you are yawning, ready to click to some mundane website about, like, news or e-mail, thinking, Rhubarb, what? Is she crazy? Ick! Trust me, the strawberries are rhubarb’s ticket to popularity. Remember that teen comedy movie in the ’80s Can’t Buy Me Love 
with a young NERDY Patrick Dempsey, Amanda Peterson, and a boyish Seth Green? Rhubarb, you are now McDreamy popular dude when paired with Strawberries. Oh, wait. That’s another show
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with a young NERDY Patrick Dempsey, Amanda Peterson, and a boyish Seth Green? Rhubarb, you are now McDreamy popular dude when paired with Strawberries. Oh, wait. That’s another show.
Whatever it is, it is good. The sweet of the berries and the tang of the rhubarb complement each other well. No nerdy Dempsey needed.
strawberry-rhubarb crisp
Author: story of a kitchen (from Food & Wine magazine and The Lompoc Cafe Cookbook)
Recipe type: dessert
Ingredients
- 2 pounds of rhubarb
- 1 cup of sugar
- 1 pound of strawberries
- 3 tablespoons cornstarch
- 2 teaspoons lemon juice
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- Topping:
- ⅔ cup flour
- 1 cup old-fashioned oatmeal
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon nutmeg
- ⅔ cup almonds, roughly chopped
- 1⅓ cup brown sugar (I used dark brown sugar)
- ⅔ cup unsalted butter, softened
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
- In separate bowls, combine ¾ cup of the sugar with the rhubarb and ¼ cup of the sugar with the strawberries.
- If the rhubarb becomes juicy, discard the juice. (Mine only became mildly moist.)
- Mix the rhubarb and strawberries together.
- Add cornstarch, lemon and vanilla.
- Spread evenly in a 9 x 13-inch pan.
- Mix all of topping ingredients together in a medium-sized bowl. I like to pinch-mix the butter in with my fingers. Crumble topping on top of fruit.
- Bake at 375 degrees F for 30 minutes, then turn down the oven to 325 degrees F for another 20 minutes. Check your crisp during the last stint: you may need to cover with foil to prevent burning of the topping.
- Serve with vanilla ice cream for dessert. I actually love this for breakfast and serve it with a thick, Greek yogurt on the side.
2 COMMENTS
Ah, the summer evenings during vacation; out late catching fireflies; coming in for warm rhubarb crisp. The memories!
It took me a long time to realize that rhubarb was actually good. I didn't enjoy Mom's as much as I should have.