In My Mother's Kitchen: Rhubarb Crisp
When I wrote about my mother's chocolate chip cookies, I rattled through the other major desserts my mother made. Most of those were for a specific holiday, like hamantaschen. She had a crustless pumpkin pie which was made for Thanksgiving and on rare other occasions. Blueberry muffins were sweet, but considered breakfast. However, I did forget one frequently made dessert, and it even had ingredients straight from our garden.
Rhubarb Crisp
6 to 7 cups sliced rhubarb (can also be chunked if you prefer)
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 cup whole wheat flour, divided
3/4 cup rolled oats
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup butter
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Toss rhubarb with 1/4 cup whole wheat flour and 1/2 cup sugar. Spread in 9 inch square pan.
3. Mix remaining dry ingredients together.
4. Cut butter into dry ingredients until mixture is crumbly. Spread over rhubarb.
5. Bake for 50-60 minutes until rhubarb is tender.
All of the rhubarb my mother used came from her garden, or more accurately from the side of the house where the rhubarb was transplanted at some point. It was a good sized rhubarb plant, so we'd have rhubarb crisp several times during the growing season.
In addition to the rhubarb and other garden produce, we also had a prolific plum tree and a less prolific apricot tree. A much disliked chore of mine was to dispose of the windfall from the plums, which were always full of ants. In any event, the fruits that had time to grow in a short North Dakota summer were small and somewhat bitter, but my mother made large amounts of plum jelly, plum butter and apricot jelly whenever those trees provided enough fruit to make it worthwhile.
The plum tree had fruit on it from pretty much the time we moved into that house until my parents moved out. The apricot tree didn't have fruit until we'd been there a few years. My maternal grandmother actually IDed the fruit the first year they came in, saying "looks like apricots" and then eating one and saying "yep, that's an apricot." The tree died before my folks moved out and never generated anywhere near the amount of fruit that the plum tree did.
With my parents now out of that house for several years, nowadays my Aunt Joanne occasionally provides me with jams and jellies with ingredients sourced from her garden (particularly blueberry), but for rhubarb I have to get lucky at a farmers market, so I rarely make it. Fortunately, my mother's rhubarb crisp recipe can be easily converted to apple crisp, which is almost as tasty if less authentic to my childhood. I make it a few times a year.
Apple Crisp
6 to 7 cups sliced apple (can also be chunked if you prefer)
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 cup rolled oats
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup butter
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Spread apples in 9 inch square pan.
3. Mix dry ingredients together.
4. Cut butter into dry ingredients until mixture is crumbly. Spread over apples.
5. Bake for 50-60 minutes until apple is tender.
Optionally: toss apples with 1 Tbsp lemon juice before spreading in pan. My mother's notes indicate she never does this, which does lead one to wonder why she bothered to type it up in the first place.
I really need to plant some rhubarb in my yard. Note for 2021!
Rhubarb Crisp
6 to 7 cups sliced rhubarb (can also be chunked if you prefer)
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 cup whole wheat flour, divided
3/4 cup rolled oats
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup butter
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Toss rhubarb with 1/4 cup whole wheat flour and 1/2 cup sugar. Spread in 9 inch square pan.
3. Mix remaining dry ingredients together.
4. Cut butter into dry ingredients until mixture is crumbly. Spread over rhubarb.
5. Bake for 50-60 minutes until rhubarb is tender.
All of the rhubarb my mother used came from her garden, or more accurately from the side of the house where the rhubarb was transplanted at some point. It was a good sized rhubarb plant, so we'd have rhubarb crisp several times during the growing season.
In addition to the rhubarb and other garden produce, we also had a prolific plum tree and a less prolific apricot tree. A much disliked chore of mine was to dispose of the windfall from the plums, which were always full of ants. In any event, the fruits that had time to grow in a short North Dakota summer were small and somewhat bitter, but my mother made large amounts of plum jelly, plum butter and apricot jelly whenever those trees provided enough fruit to make it worthwhile.
The plum tree had fruit on it from pretty much the time we moved into that house until my parents moved out. The apricot tree didn't have fruit until we'd been there a few years. My maternal grandmother actually IDed the fruit the first year they came in, saying "looks like apricots" and then eating one and saying "yep, that's an apricot." The tree died before my folks moved out and never generated anywhere near the amount of fruit that the plum tree did.
With my parents now out of that house for several years, nowadays my Aunt Joanne occasionally provides me with jams and jellies with ingredients sourced from her garden (particularly blueberry), but for rhubarb I have to get lucky at a farmers market, so I rarely make it. Fortunately, my mother's rhubarb crisp recipe can be easily converted to apple crisp, which is almost as tasty if less authentic to my childhood. I make it a few times a year.
Apple Crisp
6 to 7 cups sliced apple (can also be chunked if you prefer)
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 cup rolled oats
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup butter
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Spread apples in 9 inch square pan.
3. Mix dry ingredients together.
4. Cut butter into dry ingredients until mixture is crumbly. Spread over apples.
5. Bake for 50-60 minutes until apple is tender.
Optionally: toss apples with 1 Tbsp lemon juice before spreading in pan. My mother's notes indicate she never does this, which does lead one to wonder why she bothered to type it up in the first place.
I really need to plant some rhubarb in my yard. Note for 2021!