Ah, rhubarb

Hello, rhubarb! I want to eat you.

I got my first CSA delivery today. I am so excited. Amongst the many greens that are ready at this time of year, I found some rhubarb. Oh joy! I looked at rhubarb at my local grocery store earlier in the spring. But the price horrified me. I am always willing to pay more for good quality food, but I was pretty sure that it had been trucked in from who-knows-where, and wasn't very good. So I held out. And I'm glad I did.

As soon as I got home, I started rooting around for what I would do with my excess of strawberries (we picked them on Wednesday, and they came in the CSA) and that tasty, tasty rhubarb. Here's what I came up with:

I based this on a Country magazine recipe for a strawberry-rhubarb pie with crumb topping.

Strawberry-Rhubarb Crisp

Gather:

stick of butter

flour

oats

rhubarb

strawberries

sugar

brown sugar

1 egg

vanilla

Butter a 13x9 pan/dish.

Filling:

Chop 3-4 stalks of rhubarb into 1/2" pieces (about 3 cups or so, based on your tastes). Cut strawberries in half, maybe about 4-5 cups. The thing about rhubarb and strawberries is they will both cook down. So err on the side of excess. Make as much filling as your family will eat! Set fruit aside.

In a bowl, mix together about 1 c. white sugar, 3 tbsp. flour, 1 tsp. vanilla and 1 egg. Then gently mix in the fruit.

This is the filling. If you need to make more to fill your pan, it's easy enough. I added a bit more sugar, another stalk of rhubarb, and another cup of strawberries to fill my dish up to where I wanted it. Pour the filling into the buttered dish.

Topping:

1/2 c. brown sugar

stick butter

1/2 c. oats

1 c. flour

Combine the dry ingredients. Cut in the butter with pastry blender. I always end up using the pastry blender at the beginning, but end up using my hands to break up the bits of butter.

Sprinkle the topping over the filling.

Bake at 350 for 40-45 minutes.

Funny enjoys her dessert.

A few notes:

I was out of brown sugar, so I just used white sugar and added a tbsp. or so of molasses. Yum.

If you are a rhubarb newbie, you should know that sugar is the key with rhubarb. It is super, super sour! Be generous with the sugar. It's okay this one time. Would I lie to you?