Are you a rhubarb lover? I know rhubarb tends to be a regional thing. Some people love it and some have know idea it exists. I have never seen it in a supermarket. In our neck of the woods, it is one of those things most of your suburban neighbors have growing in their yard along with dandelions, mint, and the ever dreadful garlic mustard. Rhubarb seemed to disappear for a few years, but now that Old School recipes are resurfacing, it is making a comeback. The last days to harvest it were several weeks back and now you may be staring at the pile in your fridge trying to figure out what to do with it before it goes bad. No worries! Anything you can do with sour apples, you can pretty much do with rhubarb. One favorite from my childhood is rhubarb crisp. It is basically just like apple crisp with a tangy tartness.
Rhubarb crisp
Preheat oven 375º
9×13 inch pan
Bake time 55 minutes
1 cup rhubarb sauce
5 cups fresh sliced rhubarb
1.25 cups brown sugar
8 oz sweet cream salted butter
Pinch of all spice
4 cups whole oats
Slice of your fresh rhubarb and mix it with your rhubarb sauce. You can skip the rhubarb sauce if you like for simplicity, or check out how to make a simple rhubarb sauce. Spread your rhubarb mixture along the bottom of a 9×13 inch Pyrex pan or baking pan.
Combine your whole oats, brown sugar, all spice, and softened butter together in a bowl and mix well. You may need to mix by hand. Crumple your oat mixture by hand over the rhubarb.
Place your baking pan in a preheated oven at 375ºF for about 55 minutes or until the oat crumble is a crispy brown.
Our rhubarb crisp sometimes turns out too mushy depending on how juicy the rhubarb was or if I really did not need the sauce. In that case it is more like a sweet oatmeal, which is cool too. Either way, our daughter Wyn gobbles it up. Our son is more wary. He thinks rhubarb is a little too close in appearance to celery and doesn’t trust it no matter how much I try to convince him otherwise. Oh well, his loss!