It’s rhubarb season in my neck of the woods. There are signs on roadsides, it’s for sale at our grocery store, and there’s rhubarb pie at our favorite diner. Oh boy, oh boy! Rhubarb – the taste of spring!
My sibs and I were brought up on rhubarb. It grew abundantly at the edge of our garden and Mom found fabulous things to do with it. We had warm rhubarb sauce on ice cream, rhubarb crisp, and rhubarb cake.
One of Mom’s favorite concoctions was a dessert called Spring Delight, a sort of biscuit-y rhubarb cobbler. Alas it must have gone out of fashion with her by the time Mom was called upon to submit recipes to her church or square dance cookbooks because I can’t find the recipe in either of those sources. Probably my sisters can resurrect it. I remember dough rolled out, sprinkled with rhubarb, butter, and sugar, rolled back up and sliced, then baked smothered in more rhubarb sauce. Yum!
But my favorite rhubarb delicacy, beyond all measure, was my mom’s pie! Plain old rhubarb? Nope. Rhubarb-Strawberry? Too common – and not the best flavor combination by a long shot. Nope. I’m talking about my mom’s Rhubarb-Pineapple pie – hands down, the best pie on the planet.
This was the specialty I requested when I came home from college – and for years to come. De-lish! The tartness of the rhubarb with the sweetness of the pineapple – together in a firm egg custard. Now that’s a pie! Warm from the oven with a scoop of ice cream. Oh my!
I made Mom’s Rhubarb-Pineapple pie last week – my one pie of the year – and every bite took me back to spring days of my childhood, to pot-luck suppers and fundraisers for which my mom made pie. (She generally made an extra one for home and one for the freezer along with the two she took for someone else to eat. Hooray, hooray!) It was a sweet week at my house – one small piece of Mom’s pie every day!
It was so good, I thought I should share the recipe. Here it is.
Darlene Crosiar’s Rhubarb-Pineapple Pie
Pastry for 2-crust pie (I make only 1 crust to reduce calories and it’s darned good as an open pie too!)
Mix together: 1 cup sugar and 3 Tablespoons flour
Add: 2 beaten eggs, small can of drained crushed pineapple, 2 cups rhubarb cut into 1-inch slices
Mix and pour into unbaked crust. Dot with butter (I skip the butter) Cover with second crust. Sprinkle with sugar. Bake until crust is nicely browned in 400 degree oven, about 50-60 minutes. (If you’re going with a one-crust pie, cover with foil for at least half the time.)
Pull the pie out of the oven, breathe in that sweet-tart aroma. Then, call me and I’ll be right over to join you for a slice of pie!
Have a sweet – and tartly exciting – week!
Sally
Monday, June 15, 2009
Monday, June 8, 2009
Monday Moment - In NE Oregon
My book group’s selection this month is The Shack by Paul Young which I just finished (3 days early) this morning. It’s an intriguing tale of forgiveness, faith, and learning about God, set in a place that I had the incredible privilege to visit five years ago.
When Peggy Fine first asked if I was available to speak at the Oregon State Grange Session in Joseph Oregon, she described the area as the most beautiful place in the world. It was hard to argue about that!
Joseph is a tiny town nestled in a valley of the Wallowa Mountains of Northeast Oregon. It’s not easy to get to – by air or automobile – unless you have a lot of time to get there. I flew into Spokane, Washington, skirted Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, (which has a lake that rivals the beauty of my own Canandaigua Lake) and headed south. My first destination was Lewiston where the Clearwater River joins the Snake and whose sister city Clarkston, Washington across the Snake River gives a pretty good clue about the area’s history. I stayed right on the Lewis and Clark Trail on the bi-centennial year of that amazing trek.
From Clarkston, one can travel – if you’re adventurous – through Rattlesnake Canyon on Route 129, where a sign warns you that there’s no gas, for 70 miles. There is, however, ice cream at the bottom of the canyon where the proprietor assured me it stays a comfortable 70 degrees year-round. And incredible sights that take one’s breath away – as do the hairpin turns going down and then up through the canyon.
From the south rim of Rattlesnake Canyon, you come out on a high plateau that offers a first view of the Wallowa Mountains. As you follow Oregon’s Route 3 south, you descend gently into a broad, fertile valley with picturesque working farms and amazing snow-capped peaks beyond.
That’s where I picked up the trail of The Shack’s main character Mack and his family who drove from near Portland east along the Columbia River Gorge and nearly six hours east through Enterprise and Joseph to camp at Wallowa State Park. I won’t say more about what happens there because you can read the book!
But since I was there – and since I took about a million pictures of this most picturesque setting – I thought I’d show you just some of what you can see in Northeast Oregon, Joseph, the Wallowa Mountains and their evirons. I tried to include the pics that show what Paul Young tried to show in words – and then I just couldn’t help adding a few others that captured me.
I hope you enjoy a little armchair travel on this Monday. And that you have a chance to travel down some lane of your own memory that gives you as much pleasure as I’ve had re-living my visit to the most beautiful place in the world.
Sally
When Peggy Fine first asked if I was available to speak at the Oregon State Grange Session in Joseph Oregon, she described the area as the most beautiful place in the world. It was hard to argue about that!
Joseph is a tiny town nestled in a valley of the Wallowa Mountains of Northeast Oregon. It’s not easy to get to – by air or automobile – unless you have a lot of time to get there. I flew into Spokane, Washington, skirted Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, (which has a lake that rivals the beauty of my own Canandaigua Lake) and headed south. My first destination was Lewiston where the Clearwater River joins the Snake and whose sister city Clarkston, Washington across the Snake River gives a pretty good clue about the area’s history. I stayed right on the Lewis and Clark Trail on the bi-centennial year of that amazing trek.
From Clarkston, one can travel – if you’re adventurous – through Rattlesnake Canyon on Route 129, where a sign warns you that there’s no gas, for 70 miles. There is, however, ice cream at the bottom of the canyon where the proprietor assured me it stays a comfortable 70 degrees year-round. And incredible sights that take one’s breath away – as do the hairpin turns going down and then up through the canyon.
From the south rim of Rattlesnake Canyon, you come out on a high plateau that offers a first view of the Wallowa Mountains. As you follow Oregon’s Route 3 south, you descend gently into a broad, fertile valley with picturesque working farms and amazing snow-capped peaks beyond.
That’s where I picked up the trail of The Shack’s main character Mack and his family who drove from near Portland east along the Columbia River Gorge and nearly six hours east through Enterprise and Joseph to camp at Wallowa State Park. I won’t say more about what happens there because you can read the book!
But since I was there – and since I took about a million pictures of this most picturesque setting – I thought I’d show you just some of what you can see in Northeast Oregon, Joseph, the Wallowa Mountains and their evirons. I tried to include the pics that show what Paul Young tried to show in words – and then I just couldn’t help adding a few others that captured me.
I hope you enjoy a little armchair travel on this Monday. And that you have a chance to travel down some lane of your own memory that gives you as much pleasure as I’ve had re-living my visit to the most beautiful place in the world.
Sally
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