It's Rhubarb Time!

Today, we'll visit with one of my most cherished family desserts: Rhubarb Crunch Pie. We use rhubarb brought over from Finland by my great-Grandfather Heikke (Henry) Hannunp Kupunen in 1903. It's very easy to propogate. My sister and cousin are now keepers of the rhubarb, although we have a few plants here at the homestead. You can use frozen, which really isn't a choice if you live in the South or either coast where it just doesn't get cold enough to grow. Normally, we can only pull rhubarb twice a year over a couple of weeks, but this year, it came up early (made some this a.m.), so I expect to get an extra crop before the end of June. Serve with a dollop of cream or Cool Whip. Good warm or room temperature. The recipe comes from a 1965 church cookbook that is so old and worn that the covers are gone.

Rhubarb Crunch Pie

1 cup sifted flour
1 cup brown sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
2 cups oatmeal
1/2 cup melted shortening (I currently use margarine or butter)

Mix until crumbly, spread 1/2 on bottom of greased 13 x 9 inch pan.

Filling:
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup water
2 tablespoons cornstarch
6 cups cut up rhubarb

Mix sugar, vanilla, water and cornstarch and cook on low-medium until clear; Add rhubarb and mix well. Pour over pie shell and cover with remaining crumbs. Bake 350 degrees about 1 hour.

Notes: if you want just a 9 inch deep dish pie, use only 3/4 cup oatmeal, 1/4 cup shortening and 4 cups rhubarb. Bake 1 hour. Rhubarb cooks down, so if your pie plate looks way overfilled, that's not a problem! Also, Mom recently has started just laying out the rhubarb and just pouring the filling over it evenly. That seems to work well for her and is actually easier, but I still mix it separately.


Rhubarb Crunch Pie. That burnt on film along the top edges is what happens when you use PAM instead of shortening to grease. I could never understand why all the glass dishes had so much of that brown stuff. Not only is it ugly for presentation, but it's tough to get off. Pam is a mist and doesn't go just where you want it to go. It goes everywhere. Keep that in mind!

Also in the works today was getting several cookbooks in the mail. I'm a big fan of Taste of Home magazine and recently they had a sale to try and make room in their warehouse. So, got a bunch of cookbooks cheap! These are my latest 3.