Strawberry Blueberry Rhubarb Crisp

Last week, Travis came home from a meeting with his teacher, Davy, with a few stalks of rhubarb.  Confession: I've been scared of rhubarb since I was old enough to know what it was.  Not frightened of the stalks themselves obviously.  More scared of the unknown of something that seemed SO unlikely to be paired with fruit...not having a clue what to do with it.

I stared at the stalks for a few days, trying to get up the nerve to use them.  Sunday, I remembered a blog I happened upon a few weeks ago for a Strawberry Blueberry Rhubarb Crisp.  Travis is more of a crisp person than a pie guy, so I thought this would be the perfect recipe to conquer my 'fear' with.  Our friends Laci, Christian, and their son Berkeley were coming over for dinner, and are such good friends that I felt ok about trying out a dish that might fail.  :)

Thank you, Eat More Veg, for helping me learn that I'm a rhubarb fan!  This berry rhubarb crisp is easy to make, tart AND sweet, has a pretty purple syrup, and smells delicious when cooking.  Top it off with some vanilla ice cream and it's perfect!

Ingredients

Filling
4 stalks of rhubarb, cut into 1" pieces (about 2 cups)
1 pint blueberries
1 pound strawberries, washed and quartered
1 cup sugar
1.5 Tablespoons cornstarch
3 Tablespoons orange juice

Crisp
1 cup flour
1 cup old fashioned oats
1 cup brown sugar
1.5 sticks cold butter cut into little cubes

Directions

Mix rhubarb, blueberries, and strawberries in a large bowl.  Add sugar, cornstarch and orange juice and stir to evenly coat fruit.  Spread evenly along the bottom of a pyrex dish.  I used a 9x9 dish because I wanted a thicker crisp, but you could also use a 13x9 pan - it'll just be thin!

In a medium bowl, mix flour, oats, and brown sugar.  Cut cold butter into small squares and add to crisp mixture.  Using a knife (or your clean hands), combine butter with dry ingredients.  Sprinkle crisp over the fruit, the bake at 375 degrees for 35-40 minutes, or until crust is light brown and the fruit is blubbling!

Let the crisp sit for 15-20 minutes before serving.  Add a scoop of vanilla ice cream and enjoy!