Recovering: Strawberry-Rhubarb Crumble

I did survive.  Still not consistently breathing through my nose (sorry yoga classmates, it's not pretty mouth breathing and nose-blowing), but functioning at about 80%.  Things to be done, places to go.  Friday night, quiet dinner with dear friends (she cooked, bless her).  Saturday was mulch day and with the help of superior mulch handling tools borrowed from the Wedes, Greg and I knocked it out on the one sunny day we've had around here recently.  Adorned the front porch with pretty annuals in pots.  Graduation party in two weeks.  Keep going.  Check the lists.  Stay on your toes.  Crash hard at night.

And now it's Monday night.  As has become my custom, after dinner dishes done to New Music Monday on WTTS (an independent and awesome local station, listen online:  wttsfm.com) I sit down to catch up on my blog world.  This exercise usually stretches into hour two:  Indy Underground (not local music, that would be pretty limiting) for more new music to expand my iTunes collection and keep me typing.  Anyone else out of space on their iPod?  So sad.  Not a big fan of managing my library, but cheaper than a new pod.  And I can not live without.  Love the little thing.  Sometimes a little intravenous Coldplay gets me through what might otherwise require Prozac.

There's my little tangent for the evening.  Back to the task at hand.  Promised a recipe for the strawberry-rhubarb crumble I made last week.  Enjoyed by all, but no one more than Sara's Quinn.  Thank goodness or I would have destroyed about half of it.

bubbly, crumbly, buttery fruit goodness

Strawberry-Rhubarb Crumble

crumble
1 1/3 C flour
1 tsp baking powder
3 T sugar
3T Demerara sugar (turbinado or raw sugar with big brown crystals)
zest of one lemon
6 T unsalted butter, melted

filling
2 C rhubarb, cut in 1-inch pieces (4 nice fat stalks or so)
4 C strawberries, leaves removed and cut in fourths
juice of one lemon
1/2 C sugar
4 T cornstarch
pinch of salt

Heat oven to 375 degrees.  Prepare crumble topping by whisking together flour, baking powder, sugars and lemon zest in a medium bow.  Add the melted butter and toss with a fork or use your hands until clumping together in 1/4-1/2-inch crumbles.  Set aside.

Toss rhubarb and strawberries with lemon juice, sugar, cornstarch and pinch of salt.  Pour fruit into a 9-inch deep dish pie plate or similar sized baking dish.  Top with crumbles of topping.  If your dish is full to the brim, place a baking sheet underneath to prevent fruit from bubbling over and you having to clean your oven.

Bake for 40-50 minutes until crumble topping is golden brown and the fruit mixture is bubbling.

Serve warm with vanilla ice cream, if desired.

ingredients

fruit tossed with lemon juice, cornstarch, sugar and a pinch of salt

in my favorite deep dish pie plate

crumble topping without butter

with butter and nice and crumbly
(actually I skimped on the butter by mistake so your's will hold together better)
(remember, I was coming down with an epic cold so a mistake is understandable)

in the oven, again your's won't be quite as dusty

By the way, songs I might recommend from tonight:  new My Morning Jacket, "Circuital" and "Holding on to Black Metal" due out May 10th.