Rhubarb!

Bill has a girlfriend.  Not THAT kind of girlfriend.  This is a lovely lady he was built and repaired fence for who just happens to love Bill.  People always love Bill.  It gets a little nauseating.  Anyway, this lady (she's like 65) always gives Bill a little something extra for his time, like eggs, or veggies, or home-raised beef.  I think I'll be encouraging this relationship.

This week, after a service call (yeah, right,  I see through that), Bill brought home 5 dozen (!) eggs and a giant bag of rhubarb.  So generous!  The eggs will be taken care of within a few weeks easily.  But the rhubarb?  Hmmmm.  My Grandma Klecker used to let us eat rhubarb from her garden (it was actually my Grandpa's garden and it was amazing) with a little paper cup of sugar to dip the stalks in.  Raw.  It was quite sour, but I remember liking it.  I'm out of little paper cups, so I was looking for a new way to prepare the rhubarb.

Here's what I made:

Rhubarb Sauce:
Boil 1 C. water and 1 C. sugar
Add 8 cups rhubarb, cut in 1 inch chunks
Simmer for about 10-15 minutes, or until nice and saucy.  Stir in about a tsp. of cinnamon

Rhubarb Crisp:
Crumble together:
1 C. flour, 3/4 C. oats, 1 C. brown sugar, 1 tsp. cinnamon, and 1/2 C. melted butter
Pat half of this mixture in a 8X8 pan (I used a pie pan)
On top of the crumb mixture add:
4 C. chopped rhubarb
Over rhubarb pour:
1 C. water, 1/2 C. sugar, 2 Tbsp. cornstarch (I used arrowroot powder), and 1 tsp. vanilla--cook this mixture until it's thick.
Sprinkle remaining crumb mixture over the whole thing.
Bake at 350 for 45 min. or so.

 Giant bag of rhubarb.

 Making sauce.

Well, there were two crisps when I went to bed.  Hmmm.  Someone likes rhubarb.