Rhubarb, rhubarb...

The weather has been a bit dreary for the last couple of weeks, but the rhubarb in the garden has enjoyed the recent rainfall. So much so, in fact, that I think we will mostly be eating rhubarb for the foreseeable future.

I have recently acquired a new crumble dish - the one that I used for my last crumble foray ended up getting used to hold a flower arrangement of anemones for my mum's 75th birthday (happy birthday, Mum! It was a GREAT party!) which she took home with her after the party, and so that my poor chaps at home would not be unduly deprived of crumble, I now have her oval pyrex dish, which is significantly bigger than the one that had the anemones in.

Tonight I gave the larger crumble dish its first outing, with the first crop of rhubarb from the garden.

900g of freshly picked rhubarb, washed and cut into 2.5cm chunks, covered the bottom of it quite nicely. 85g of sugar was sprinkled over that, and that all sat in the dish thinking about things quietly while I whizzed up 300g of plain flour and 120g butter in the food processor, then added 80g rolled oats and 100g sugar and gave it another quick whizz.

Spreading this evenly over the lumpy rhubarb in the dish was a bit challenging - I could have done with more crumble mix, really. Particularly as there is the regular "crumble grumble" in which it is strongly suggested to me that the main point of a crumble is the crumble topping and certain young gentlemen in the house would definitely prefer their crumble with not so much fruit and a lot more topping. As there were some areas where the crumble topping was a bit on the thin side, due to the underlying rhubarb substrate being a little uneven, I popped this in the oven (180degC) for about 50 mins, until the rhubarb juices were bubbling up pinkly through the (all too sparse) crumble topping, bracing myself for the inevitable whingeing when it was served. However, older son and husband both ate it with apparent relish (and a large helping of custard) and younger son will be having his when he gets back from helping at Scouts this evening.

Yes, I'm such a bad mother that I don't even feed my poor son properly before he goes out in the evening these days. But as I didn't get back from work until 6 today, having a crumble that could be eaten by 7 was never really a possibility, and he has it to look forward to when he comes home.