Rhubarb Goodness

 I needed to use up the bag of rhubarb I got from Dave Beskar who harvested the plant from his farm.  Izzy and I had some time to kill and I chose to make a dessert for our area break fast.  Not breakfast, but break fast. Once each month, we fast on a Wednesday and meet in groups for dinner. We have perfected the menu by emailing each other a few days in advance with what we can bring to share. It always turns out well...food and drinks aplenty. And, the event is always a nice middle of the week break and time to catch up over casual conversation with our brothers and sisters in community.

So, doing a quick search online, I found this simple and yummy recipe from cooks.com.  I especially like the layering of the crumb mixture. Maybe this is a standard step in making rhubarb crisp, but it was my first one so it was all new.


Ingredients
1 cup flour
3/4 cup oatmeal
1 cup brown sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 cup melted butter (So hot this summer, microwaves are almost unnecessary. And yes, I always use real butter, not the stuff with ingredients I can't pronounce.)
4 cups rhubarb (I peel and slice it into 1/2 inch pieces.)
1 cup water
1 tsp vanilla (I use the real stuff, not imitation)
1 cup sugar (I usually go a little less with sugar in most recipes)
2 tbsp. cornstarch

Mix flour, oatmeal, brown sugar, cinnamon and melted butter. Place half of crumb mixture in a 9x9 inch pan. Cover with rhubarb.

Combine and cook in a saucepan over stove, water, vanilla, sugar and cornstarch until thick. This is a quick step. Pour over rhubarb and top with remaining crumb mixture.

Bake at 350 degrees for 50-60 minutes. Serve warm with ice cream.  I think we served it with Kemps Old Fashioned Vanilla or something like that.  Yum!