Today's creation! Odds & Ends Fruit Crisp

When I was six my family moved into a house with a lovely fenced yard and a massive aged rhubarb plant. Never having had a rhubarb plant of her own, my mother was nervous one of us children would eat some of the highly poisonous leaves and set out on a mission to remove the thing. I'm not sure of my brother, but I know my sister and I grew up very wary of rhubarb as a baking ingredient.

Yesterday at the market, Maddie was entranced by the beautiful spears of rosy rhubarb at her eye level and picked one up, asking me to buy it. Well. Strawberries were on sale, my pantry was full of jars of crisp topping that Maddie and I had made a few weeks ago and one spear only cost $.87 ... why not?

I woke up this morning ready to bake my first rhubarb recipe ever - strawberry rhubarb crisp. Aaaaaaaaaand I found a bowl full of strawberry hulls next to Daddy's seat on the couch. He ate half the strawberries. The HORROR!

So I looked at what I had in the cabinet, did a little googling and found the following recipes for inspiration: Blackberry Rhubarb Crisp and Rhubarb and Nectarine Crumble

So without further ado...

Odds and Ends Fruit Crisp

about 1.5 lb of strawberries, hulled and chunked
1 spear of rhubarb, sliced into "coins"
1 nectarine, chunked
1.5 cups of blackberries (big ones halved)
1/3 cup homemade cranberry applesauce from the pantry (subbing for the OJ)
1/2 cup brown sugar (not convinced it needs this, but never baked with rhubarb before)

One jar of my Crisp Topping
5tbl of butter, cut into little pieces

Pour crisp mix and butter into a medium sized bowl.
Crumble butter into crisp mix, pinching with fingers until the whole mixture is well blended and resembles moist sand (per America's Test Kitchen recomendations for crisp topping). I should have taken a pic of this. Gah. Refrigerate for 15 minutes. Preheat oven to 375F.

While everything is chillin and heatin, get filling ready in an oven-safe casserole (8in square glass pan or 9in deep dish pie pan will work). Mix brown sugar with juice or apple sauce. Pour fuit into casserole and toss with sugar mix.

When topping chilled, pat on top of fruit. Bake on middle rack with something underneath (foil, cookie sheet etc) to catch drips. Bake about 40 minutes or until topping is really browned. I like to bake it at least 45m.

Allow to cool at least 15m before eating.  Or not. Whatever rocks your socks!