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
.

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.