It's Rhubarb Season Again!

In honor of spring and rhubarb season we made Rhubarb Bars and Rhubarb Sauce with our first pick of the year.  My Mom practically has a rhubarb plantation.....well, I'm not sure what really constitutes a "plantation" but she has about a 20 foot row of it that has been growing there since I was a kid---and that's a loooong time!  It supplies all of our family plus many friends and neighbors for the duration of the growing season.  My Mom lives about 5 hours away from us but she and my Grandma were here visiting last weekend to pick up their new puppy and to celebrate Mother's Day.  So she brought both our family and my sister a huge bag of rhubarb from the first pickins'!  Yum Yum!

Our stash went from this:

  

To This:

Here is our recipe for Rhubarb Bars......

Rhubarb Bars

Rhubarb Sauce
Cook till thick:
3c. fresh rhubarb
1 1/2 c. sugar
1/4 c. water
2 T cornstarch
1 t vanilla

Crust/Topping
1 1/2 c. oats
1 1/2 c. flour
1 c. butter
1/2 t. baking soda
1 c. brown sugar
1/2 c. nuts--optional

Mix together crust/topping ingredients until it resembles small crumbles and pat 1/2 of mixture in a 9x13 pan to form a crust.  Pour rhubarb sauce over top of crust.  Sprinkle the remaining oat mixture on top of rhubarb sauce.  Pat down gently.  Bake at 350 for approximately 20-40 minutes.

*You can add raspberries, apples or strawberries or peaches in with the rhubarb sauce for slightly different flavors.

I've have heard over and over that even those people that don't like rhubarb love Rhubarb Bars!

Have a great day!
Wendy

Strawberries Anyone?!

Last Thursday we decided that it was a perfect day to go pick strawberries.  So we all (except Todd because he was at work) got in the car and headed out to the strawberry farm.  It didn't take the 7 of us very long to pick 50 pounds of berries.....well, maybe I should say the 4 of us because Nathaniel, Jake and Chloe weren't that much help.  I'm pretty sure they ate more than they picked!

Four of the six boxes we picked

We froze most of them but saved out some to make freezer jam and a couple of desserts.  By the time I was done cleaning all of the berries I pretty much didn't want to look at another strawberry for a while.....at least until the next day when I made a strawberry, cream cheese, pretzel dessert--this is a family favorite!

Here's the recipe for anyone that is interested:

2 cups crushed pretzels

3 T. sugar

3/4 cup melted butter

1 8oz cream cheese

1 cup sugar

1 12oz Cool Whip

2 3oz packages of strawberry Jello (or 1 6oz pkg)

2 cups boiling water

20 ounces of frozen strawberries

Mix crushed pretzels, sugar and melted butter together and press into a 9x13 pan.  Bake at 400 for about 8 minutes.  Take out and let cool.  Blend cream cheese and sugar until smooth then fold in Cool Whip.  Spread over cooled crust, chill.  Combine Jello and boiling water.  Stir until dissolved.  Add frozen berries, stir.  Let set until slightly thickened, about 5-10 minutes.  Pour over cream cheese layer and place in the refrigerator until serving.

*Can use frozen raspberries and raspberry Jello.

Strawberry season is officially done in the Pastoor household.....moving on to cherry season......then blueberry season......then peaches......apples.....and so on.....