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Rhubarb Crisp for an Easy Memorial Day Dessert

May 23, 2020 by Mary 8 Comments

It’s the season!

I adore rhubarb and right now it is in season! This rhubarb crisp recipe is perfect for an easy Memorial Day Dessert, so you can still relax. Because the recipe has all the specific ingredients I was craving, namely oats and pecans, along with the simplicity in preparation, I vote this as a winner anytime fresh rhubarb is available.

Heck, I think you could even use frozen rhubarb as rhubarb does freeze well. And typically, “crisp” recipes are certainly easier than a pie or a biscuit topping and this one is even super easy because you melt the butter and combine everything with your hands.

I made this as a surprise dessert to take over to Margaret and Wayne’s house for our first pandemic dinner out. We had all been very careful, only going out to buy food while fully gloved and masked. We hadn’t seen anyone else in the last 2 weeks. And we were all feeling great and healthy.

I was asked to bring an appetizer and I had some good store-bought hummus, chopped up some veggies and completed that request.

But now I had this gorgeous, freshly picked rhubarb from my farmer friend, Ethel, and I felt I must put this to work as I thought I remembered that Margaret loved rhubarb and sure enough I was right!

I was running late however with the crisp still in the oven. I texted over the facts, not telling them why I was late, and Wayne said OK. I then asked if they had vanilla ice cream.

Wayne texted back that they already had a dessert.

Surprise!!

I sighed, but ignored him and brought my own vanilla ice cream. (That’s what friends are for, right?)

When I arrived with the still very, very warm crisp, it was greeted with wide smiles and Margaret said, “Don’t you ever listen to my husband if he says we have dessert and you have this in the oven!”

I was glad I didn’t.

You will be glad too when you make this Rhubarb Crisp yourself this weekend! Serve with ice cream and LOVE and sit back and enjoy the compliments!

My apologies – in my rush to get Margaret and Wayne’s, I neglected to take a picture of the finished crisp. Next time!!

RHUBARB CRISP – serves 6

For the filling:

4 1/2 cups sliced rhubarb (about 6 stalks) – ½” pieces
1 tbsp. lemon juice
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup packed brown sugar

For the crisp topping:

6 Tbsp. melted butter
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup finely chopped pecans
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 tsp. French Grey salt or Kosher salt
3/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground ginger
Grated fresh nutmeg

For serving:

Use the best quality of vanilla ice cream.

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400°F. In a 10” cast-iron skillet or in a square baking dish, toss rhubarb with filling ingredients until evenly incorporated.

In a large bowl, whisk together flour, oats, pecans, brown sugar, salt, cinnamon, and ginger. Grate the fresh nutmeg evenly all over. Use your hands to incorporate melted butter into flour mixture until mixture has pea-sized clumps.

Scatter topping over rhubarb mixture and bake until rhubarb is bubbling and topping is golden, about 30 minutes.

Rhubarb Crisp ready to go into the oven!

Easy peasy!

Pesto!!

July 15, 2012 by Mary Frances 7 Comments

I had a dinner party this past Wednesday night that was so much fun. One of my senior designers who worked for me years ago, I think back in the late 80’s, was in town and got in touch. She now lives in Singapore. She connected with another former designer and I got in touch with Carl, who was the second person I ever hired for the firm in the early 80’s. So with other friends, we were 8 people in total and three were past employees of PM+CO! It was just great catching up. Linda is a vegetarian and I wanted to make sure the whole meal was amassed with local farm vegetables from upstate, to bring great country flavors to a NYC dinner party. So I started with a salad of farm lettuce and arugula from my garden, topped with roasted beets, Coach Farms goat cheese, toasted pine nuts and a sherry vinaigrette. I then roasted two huge trays of vegetables – yellow squash, zucchini, Portobello mushrooms, eggplant, Vidalia onions, smashed whole garlic cloves (from Ethel’s garden), red, and orange peppers and baby turnips – with Greek olive oil and French grey salt. I made a mass of steamed Jasmine rice, folded in Goya black beans (for protein) and for the non-vegetarians, I pan roasted 2 whole chickens seasoned with salt, pepper and Garam Masala. It was all really simple. I also had made some basil pesto the night before from basil in my garden, picked on Monday. I decided to put some of that in a bowl and people spooned it on everything and even took some home! I was originally going to fold the pesto into the rice and beans but after taking a survey from everyone during the cocktail hour, we decided this was the way to go. A dollop on top on the vegetables was divine. Barbara asked for a batch as her Christmas present and Mary Beth took a container full home. People just wanted to eat it straight. I really never dreamed of that for pesto. I just wanted to serve it because I had just made a bunch and with our youngest being in Europe, we couldn’t possibly eat it all, although pesto does freeze quite well.

We finished the meal with a rhubarb crisp (really quick and easy to make) topped with a little scoop of vanilla ice cream. Not bad for a weeknight dinner party!

Here is the pesto recipe. Remember, it’s all about the quality of the ingredients for any dish you make, so use the very best you can.

PESTO
-makes about 3 cups

3 cups of packed basil leaves, thoroughly washed and dried
6 – 7 large cloves of garlic, roughly chopped
1 1/2 cups Greek extra virgin olive oil (I like Athena brand)
1 1/2 cups walnuts
1 1/2 cups grated Parmesan (Reggiano) cheese
2/3 cup grated Pecorino Romano (Locatelli) cheese
salt
pepper

In a large food processor, combine basil, garlic and walnuts. Process to make a near paste. Scrape bowl. With machine on, slowly drizzle in olive oil. Scrape bowl again. Add the cheeses, a big pinch of salt and 20 grinds on fresh pepper. Process again, taste and add more salt, if necessary, to your liking.

A one cup portion is enough to coat 1 lb. of dried pasta, cooked. I like it on fusilli best as it can get in all the little groves for maximum coverage and flavor.

This freezes well.

Basil in my garden.

Pesto pasta and tomatoes in a white bowl.

Dinner with our good friend, Nancy, on Saturday, started with this course.