Back in Action: Rhubarb Crumble

Hello again faithful KP followers. I am back to blogging after my MCAT hiatus--hopefully my last hiatus due to the MCAT! I must apologize for how long it has taken me to get back in the swing of things; it has taken me two weeks to mentally recover from the MCAT.... In reality I have loved my last two weeks of lounging doing nothing productive but it's time to return to the real world and the blogospere and start being a productive member of society once again.

My welcome back post is a very special one because I harvested the rhubarb from the Sam's mother's garden. A little bit of back-story: After the MCAT I had to get out of DC and immerse myself in a different environment. So I took what should have been a four hour bus ride to meet Sam in NYC and drive to his family's farm in Pennsylvania. The bus ride was much longer than it should have been, so I spent a total of 9 hours traveling to PA, but a visit at Sam's house is always worth the pain/effort. His parents maintain a gorgeous farm 3 hours north of NYC. Each year his mother plants a large garden, and later in the summer whole meals are eaten from her garden plots. However, May is a bit early for the bulk of vegetables, and rhubarb was the only vegetable available in large quantities. Hence, the rhubarb crumble. There are many vegetable that I eat and have no perception of what they look like outside their harvested state. Rhubarb grows in tangled mound; the leaves are poisonous, but the stalks are tart and edible. I had described it to my Texan friends as "red celery" but upon closer inspection Rhubarb is not at all like celery except for also being a stalk. Rhubarb is a thicker stalk, has a smooth and not stringy cellulose fibers, and releases much more water when cooked than celery.

I will be posting another rhubarb recipe later this week. I haven't had time yet to go to the library and check out cook books, so the next few posts will be recipes gleaned from the internet.

Rhubarb Crumble (adapted from Simply Recipes)

Filling:

2 pounds rhubarb cut into 1 inch pieces (see note)

1 1/4 cup white sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup all purpose flour

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

(The recipe called for 1/4 cardamon, which I did not have)

Crumble Topping:

1 cup flour

1/2 whole oats (ie non-instant oatmeal)

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 butter (1 stick) cut into cubes, the butter should be cold or slightly soft

1. Preheat the oven to 375 °F. In a large bowl combine the chopped rhubarb, both types of sugar, flour, vanilla and spices. Mix well and pour into a 9x13 in glass baking dish.

2. In a food processor pulse together flour, oats, brown sugar, salt and cubed butter. Process the mixture until the butter forms pea size pieces. (I over pulsed mine and it resembled a dough, but the mixture was easily broken apart with my fingers and crumbled over the rhubarb.)

3. Bake the rhubarb crumble for 45 minutes, the topping should brown slightly and the mixture should bubble. Let the crumble cool for at least 30 minutes before serving. Serve with vanilla ice-cream or whipped cream.

Serves 8 (but I think it serves more)

Note: I had the luxury of using a kitchen scale to weigh out two pounds of chopped rhubarb, but from referencing other recipes I think that 2 pounds of chopped rhubarb equals 8 cups.