Blueberry Rhubarb Crisp

It started here I was reading one of my favorite blogs and Rhubarb came up...  I have fond memories of rhubarb.  There was a rhubarb plant in my grandmother's back yard so this post brought back memories that were pure summer for me.  Eating fresh mulberries, picking gooseberries, playing lawn darts, for those of you a little younger than me lawn darts is a game that basically involves tossing small steel tipped javelins at a circle next to your best friend's feet, great fun.  Anyway one of the most vivid image that I get is a bunch of bathing suit clad children running around each with a freshly pulled rhubarb stalk (maybe we knocked some of the dirt off) in one hand and a paper Dixie cup of sugar in the other... dip the moist rhubarb into the sugar then chew on the woody stalk, absolute heaven.

Most Sundays after church our family  would gather at Grandma's house and just have a regular summer day which would include playing in Grandpa's garden, exploring the barn where he kept all of the equipment that he used for his furnace repair business, or swinging on the tire swing tied to the walnut tree in the middle of the yard.

It struck me as funny that the first Rhubarb recipe that I read this year brought those memories back to me so quickly and so vividly,  I could almost feel the dry broken grass at my feet and the smell of the garden.  Oddly there have been several recipes that involved rhubarb it the weeks since and the feeling hasn't subsided in the least.  I started to work on some recipes myself.  However it seemed that every idea that I came up with someone blogged about a recipe that was too darned close.

Then I remembered them, in the back of the freezer!  once, quite a while ago, my in-laws came for a visit and they brought freshly picked Blueberries from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan they were absolutely beautiful.  I spent a bit of time making a Blueberry, Brandy and Tarragon glaze which was exactly as popular as a big turd in a punchbowl then sheepishly put the rest of the berries in the freezer until now.  I made a Blueberry Rhubarb Crumble.  It was really simple, preheat the oven to 350, then start with the crust:

1/3 cup salted pistachios (shelled)

3/4 cup whole wheat flour

1/3 cup packed brown sugar

1/3 cup granulated sugar

6 tablespoons cold unsalted butter cut into small cubes

Chop up the pistachios and set aside then mash the flour, sugars and butter together until it resembles course meal mix in the pistachios. 

1/2 cup granulated sugar

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

2 cup chopped rhubarb

2 cups blueberries

Mix these ingredients together in a 9x9 baking dish then top.  Take the topping a handful at a time and sprinkle/.mash and drop on top.  Once topped put in the oven for about 50 minutes until done.  This one turned out really well by the way, add a little ice cream and you are ready to go

Quick side note here as I was writing this post another good friend of mine wrote another rhubarb related post inspired by one of my recipes again the memories came right back! Thanks Camilla!

 Here we are me my little bro and cousins in 

Grandma's outdoor pool