Oh, yummy rhubarb!

A tiny little rhubarb stalk

Rhubarb is one of my favorite things. It tells me that Sweden's cold spring is finally over, and summer is coming - maybe not with hot weather and sunny days, but at least with little peeks of blue sky, and sudden bursts of heat that makes people gather in the parks. When I grew up, we grew our own rhubarb, and thus buying it in stores is totally unacceptable to me. That will not happen. It just feels wrong. Sadly, my parents moved a few years ago, and away from the rhubarb. We live in an apartment, and although we do grow some things - mint, sage, thyme, tarragon, rosemary - rhubarb is not one of them. Although we could, I'm strongly thinking about planting some for next year. Rhubarb is very easy to grow, it keeps coming back and it yields a lot. Two of my neighbors have rhubarb, and to my intense annoyment, they don't pick it. I could ask, but I'm not sure who they are. Oh well.

Per's mom has rhubarb too, and she usually gives me a big bag of it when we meet. Since we were down for Per's little brother's graduation, we got to pick as much as we wanted. It was raining heavily by then, so we did a quick thing of it, but still ended up with enough rhubarb for at least three great desserts. I started as soon as we got home the next day by making a classic rhubarb crumble. It's simple, and delicious. One of the best things to do with rhubarb, really. The crumble can be changed in any number of ways, by adding oatmeal or nuts, but this is just a very basic crumble that really showcases the tart-sweet rhubarb.



Rhubarb Crumble
4 generous servings

500 g of rhubarb, peeled and cut into bite sized pieces
sugar

300 ml flour
2 tbsp sugar
125 g butter

Start by preparing the rhubarb. Put in a pie dish, and sprinkle with sugar - it depends on how tart your rhubarb is, but don't skimp on it. Make the topping in a food processor, or by hand - start by combining the sugar and flour, add the butter and pulse (or chop) until you have crumbs. Simple as that. Put the crumbs on top of the rhubarb, and bake in a hot oven (225 degrees C, 450 F) for 20-25 minutes or until the topping looks done. Serve with custard or vanilla ice cream.