Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

Today I feel like I spent most of the day on the phone and the rest of it in front of my computer. My friend Terry called, who I haven't seen in years. We're going to get together next week. Then I was on the phone with Apple for an hour because I couldn't add music to iDVD or iMovie. It turned out my iTunes was corrupted. Now everything is fine. Then Margy called, we've been phone tagging for months and we finally connected.

By then it was time to shower and get dressed before Larry got home from golf so he wouldn't see for a fact how lazy I was. I was drying my hair when he came home. I finished listening to a Dean Koontz book on CD, Darkfall and then started another one Heat Lightning by John Sandford while I made a strawberry rhubarb crumble.

I use a couple of recipes to make this dessert so I thought I'd just put it together here so I don't have to figure it out every time. This is my favorite. I don't use any pie crust so that save lots of calories so that you can add vanilla ice cream on top.

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie with Almond Crumb Topping

Topping:
1/2 pkg Almond Paste (4 oz)
1/2 cup oats
1/2 cup flour
1/4 cup brown sugar
6 Tbsp butter (COLD), cut into small pieces
pinch salt


Cut up almond paste into small pieces and put in food processor together with oats, glour, sugar, butter pieces and salt. Pulse until just crumbly. DO NOT OVER PULSE! Set aside in refrigerator.

Filling:
1 1/2 cups sugar
2/3 cup flour
2 tsp cinnamon
2 lbs rhubarb
2 lbs strawberries

Preheat oven to 425

Mix sugar, flour, cinnamon in small bowl.
Wash rhubarb, trim ends; cut into 1-inch pieces. You should have 4-6 cups.
Wash strawberries, hull and halve (6 cups)

Place in a large bowl. Sprinkle with sugar mixture, toss lightly to mix. Let stand 15 minutes. Toss again.

Pour filling into deep pie plate or other deep baking dish.
Cover with crumbled topping. Cover with aluminum foil.
Bake in oven for 30 minutes.
Remove foil and continue baking 15 minutes or until topping is set and juices bubble up.
To catch any syrup that may boil over during baking slide a piece of aluminum foil onto the rack below pie.

I'm playing bridge at Betsy's house tonight so I can walk over and get some fresh air for the first time all day.

While I was at bridge Nancy called me back. She was having a household sale when I called her this morning. We haven't seen each other for almost 20 years except once when we ran into each other in Webster about 10 years ago.