Memorial Weekend: Ode to Rhubarb Crisp

The problem with my wonderful life is that I have built food traditions around holidays and seasons and that is my playbook for life. Now that I am starting to live in Seattle, I can't do what I always used to do and it feels weird.

Every Memorial Weekend for as long as I can remember, I spent time at the family cottage with my mom, dad and Dan. We would tromp around the property checking things out, looking for signs of spring and getting out rakes and shovels to start waking up the garden. Northern Michigan is slow to come out of winter and a pot of my asparagus soup always tasted good on a cool day.

Later in the weekend, we would have the Indy 500 car race on in the background and I would find myself making a hot rhubarb crisp from the rhubarb we found in the garden, often supplemented by the bounty at the local grocery store. I have done this every year for the last forever.

So how did I adjust? I made a pan of rhubarb crisp this weekend and afterwards I scooped a portion into 4 jam jars and screwed on the lid. My intent was to eat them in a park as park of a picnic, but in the end we ate them at home after a long day out in the fresh air. 

The bonus? Since we were at home, we could have a scoop of ice cream on top. This Memorial Day didn't feel like Memorial Day, but we had a nice time just the same. 

Rhubarb Crisp with Orange Juice and Zest

It isn't Spring without rhubarb crisp.  I love the tart and tangy flavor tamed by a scoop of vanilla Edy's Slow Churned Yogurt Blend.  For years I have tweaked this Martha Stewart rhubarb crisp recipe.

These are the things I do differently:

• Bake in a buttered 13 x 9, not ramekins
• Use 1/4 cup of Splenda Brown Sugar, instead of 1/2 cup of regular brown sugar.  The Splenda version has a sweetness that compliments the rhubarb perfectly.  This is the only recipe I make with a Splenda product. 
• I use a touch of vanilla extract and skip the vanilla bean

   

Serve a generous portion in a bowl with a scoop of Edy's vanilla yogurt blend.  

Yum yum yum yum yum.

Memorial Day

On Memorial Weekend, I always make rhubarb crisp with rhubarb from the garden. I must say, it is hard to make crisp look beautiful in a photo, although I'd like points for serving in a pretty bowl with a red rim. But for whatever it lacked visually, it made up for in taste. Yum! Have you ever made rhubarb crisp? Every year I tweak the online recipe from Martha Stewart . This year I left out the vanilla and tried it with Splenda's brown & white sugar-blends. Delicious!