Strawberry-rhubarb crisp

The boys and I were driving down the road from our house yesterday when I saw that the person down the road had rhubarb for sale on his/her roadside wagon.



I find something extremely charming about buying produce from roadside stands.

Anyway, I knew I had a bunch of strawberries at home in the fridge, so I decided to get some rhubarb and make a crisp.

I searched through my cookbooks for a recipe, and found one for rhubarb crisp in "Around Our Table," which is the cookbook put out by the Grand Marais (Michigan) Historical Society.

Of course, being me, I had to tweak the recipe. It turned out fantastic!

I combined 2 1/2 cups of sliced fresh rhubarb with 2 1/2 cups of sliced fresh strawberries, the zest of one orange, 1 cup of sugar, 1/4 cup of whole wheat flour and a generous shaking of ground cinnamon. That's the filling. You put that into a greased baking dish (it called for 8 X 8, but I used two smaller ones so I could share with the neighbors).

The topping was 1 cup whole wheat flour, 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1/2 cup white sugar, 1/2 cup old-fashioned oats and 1/2 cup melted REAL butter. After you mix all that stuff together, you put it on top of the filling. I then added a bunch of chopped walnuts to the top.

Bake for 35 minutes at 375 degrees and serve warm. Vanilla ice cream is really good with it.

It definitely isn't "diet" food, but that's why I sent half of it to the neighbors. Moderation! :)



So, there ya go, a local, seasonal treat. Mmmm.....