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!

Healthy Smoothie - Oatmeal, Spinach & Berries

If you've been following along at home, you know I'm a sucker for a good smoothie.  This week I decided to add a few ingredients to one of my favorite mixtures of fruit to make it healthier, and loved what I ended up with.  Adding oats and spinach to the already delicious list of ingredients makes this a fantastic breakfast! I was SO full after drinking mine!

All you need is:

1 medium banana
5-6 strawberries
1 cup blueberries
1/4 cup yogurt (I used strawberry Chobani)
1/4 cup oats (I used Old Fashioned Quaker Oats)
1-1.5 cups baby spinach
1/2 cup water (or more)

Then just fill your blender and blend until smooth!  I gave it a little longer than usual to make sure the oats were pulverized.  :)

Even husband liked it!

Have fun switching out the fruit you use - I don't think you'll come up with a bad combination.

Interested in other cool treats?  Check out a few of my frozen yogurt recipes - Blackberry Honey Frozen Yogurt and Strawberry Banana Fro Yo!

Enjoy!

Berry Banana Smoothie

The past week has been brutally cold here in Boston.  Even through we dodged a snowy bullet earlier this week (we were supposed to get 5"...coast was due for 12", and we just got a dusting), we have not dodged the "arctic air".  Being from the South, I'm not a huge fan of walking around in the single digits, but have gotten used to it to some extent.  Unless it's windy.  Nothing helps if it's 5 degrees and windy.

That being said, I still love having something cold at the end of the evening.  This weekend I made some Blueberry-Honey Frozen Yogurt, which was delicious.  But alas, since you can't shouldn't have ice cream every night, I like to change it up with smoothies and parfaits from time to time.  They are definitely yummier than a Popsicle...and much better for you!

Here's one of my favorite combinations - a Berry Banana Smoothie.

All you'll need is...

6-7 large frozen strawberries (about 1.5 cups)
1/2 cup frozen blueberries
1 banana
1/2 cup skim milk
3 ounces (1/2 single serving cup) blueberry Chobani (stir before adding)

Add all ingredients to your blender and blend until smooth!

This recipe makes two medium sized smoothies with 170 calories in each.  I like using frozen fruit because it acts as the ice.  More fruit is a good thing!

It's a great way to end a night!