Late Summer Rhubarb Crisp

If you shop with a tight budget, and only go once or twice a month to the store, there are inevitably going to be times when the larder is becoming bare and still it isn’t Grocery Day. With experience, these times become a day or two at most, but it is always nice to have someone up the proverbial apron sleeve, to make a meal feel special, without a lot of extras that you may be out of.

Tonight, I made rhubarb crisp for just that reason. It was served with homemade whipped cream, and was a big hit all around. There are fancier versions (like the photo of Raspberry Rhubarb Crisp above, by Vegan Feast Catering)  But I am a huge fan of the Dump and Pray Philosophy. I know how it is supposed to look in the pan, and sprinkle or add, until I get there. Fortunately for this blog post, I measured just for you. Here is my recipe:

Simple Rhubarb Crisp

4-6 cups chopped rhubarb-measured loosely, it doesn’t matter as long as your baking pan is 1 inch full of pieces.

1 box red jello -raspberry, strawberry, it doesn’t matter

1 stick butter

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup white sugar

1/2 cup flour

1 cup whole oats

cinnamon/nutmeg if desired

 

In a baking pan (I use 9X 13 inch cake pan) add the rhubarb. I like to do this with frozen rhubarb, partially thawed. The rhubarb will be juicy as it thaws. Break it up, so it evenly covers the pan.

Sprinkle sugars/jello powder/flour/oats over all.

Sprinkle with cinn/nutmeg

Place pats of butter evenly over the entire pan.

Bake 375 for 30-45 minutes, or until hot in the center and topping is slightly browned and bubbling on the edges.

Serve over ice cream or with whipped cream. Delish!!

 

Do Not Be Afraid Of Cooking

Do not be afraid of cooking. So many times I hear people say “Oh you are such a greatcook!” Or that they cant possibly cook. I always wonder about that. I mean, whatis there but something tastes good or it doesn’t? I don’t know many things thatdon’t come with some sort of recipe attached to them, either verbally from thegifter or on the label..You simply follow the recipe and watch what happens.Then the next time you tweak to make it work better for your taste.

I don’t know how many times I have taken the heat out of arecipe for my family. My  husband’s tastebuds are dead due to a lifelong addiction to chewing tobacco, and he has to usestraight up super hot sauce on every conceivable thing (no lie) but babies can’ttolerate that . So I remove the heat and slowly build up as they growolder. I do have one child who can’t tolerate any heat-even black pepper as aseasoning. I am not hip to what that means for digestion, but he is a teenagerand just in the last 6 months has been able to at least be open to trying hotthings. Of course, his idea of hot is sort of silly for even the baby, but weall grow at different paces right? J

Anyways, Do not be afraid to screwing up food! Just playwith heat temperatures, cutting sizes, seasonings and when  you do eat, really sit and taste what you areeating. Have you ever heard that a cook is never happy with what they make?Except for on FoodNetwork, but that’s not real.

Of course they are not happy! A cook always tastes what theycan do to either improve or tweak what they are eating. That doesn’t mean theydon’t enjoy what they are putting int heir mouths (heck I love it when someoneelse cooks-even a restaurant), but cooking evolves every single day for aninspired cook. One who is not afraid to make a mistake and then move on fromit.

One of my favorite things to read when I was younger was theinside cover of many cookbooks for the substitutions section. That was whereyou could go if you were out of eggs perhaps, or find out that you couldsubstitute an egg with ground flaxseed and water or something.

That is where I learned that you could make buttermilk by mixing milk and vinegar. Who knew? I have only had access to real buttermilkwhen I make butter from our goat’s milk and have it left over. In no way doesit resemble that thick weird stuff in the carton at the grocery store..I amnot sure whose brilliant scheme it was to thicken buttermilk. 

I digress. The point of today’s post is to not be afraid offood. It is there for the cooking, marinating, growing eating, making mistakeswith. Where do you thing recipes come from?There are no new recipes..cooks just mess around with things they like to eatand write them down.

I know writing my books, that I shared hundreds of recipeswith the publisher. Almost 400 of them actually. The hardest part of sharingwas that many times what I cooked was jotted down on the back of a scrap paperand god forbid I measured…I had to make so many things just to measure them tosend in to the publisher. It was tedious. But now, I can simply cook out of mytwo books and have a fairly wide range of my regular recipes turn out time andagain. Of course I play around with the tried and true ones still..that isbecause I am a fearless, rebel cook.