The first Friday of the month is reserved for recipes. You can see additional First Friday Food posts here.

The Reason:

Another catch up recipe post, but this one needed to be posted RIGHT AWAY so as not to miss strawberry season.

And you know what else is in season during strawberry season? Rhubarb.

The Journey:

Well, the journey starts with fresh-off-the-plant strawberries, naturally. Here, Oliver has one to get you started:

Rhubarb is one of my favorite things. Adding something a little sour in with the sweet just hits all the right tongue spots, you know?

When I was a kid, we had rhubarb growing between the shed and the fence, so we always had a good supply (until we tore down the shed and all the rhubarb died). There are lots of rhubarb recipes in my family, so I kind of thought everybody felt this way about rhubarb. As I get older, I find that many people just don’t know about the glory and majesty of rhubarb, including Sara. I have been working on her for years, but I think this recipe is the one that finally brought her to the dark side.

Oh, and if you’re new to rhubarb, don’t eat the leaves. I always heard they were poisonous, which is another plus for rhubarb. I like to live dangerously.

(Seriously though, is it poisonous? Because now that I think about it, that sounds like some B.S. that was told to me as a kid to keep me from gnawing the rhubarb raw, like a garden pest, before we could harvest it.)

The Verdict:

Strawberries and rhubarb go together like peanut butter and jelly. Like…like sweet and sour. I mean, literally, like sweet and sour.

The only way this could be better is if you ate it warm, right out of the oven, with a little vanilla ice cream on top…

The Recipe:

• 5 cups strawberries, cored and diced
• 5 cups rhubarb, diced
• 3/4 cups sugar
• 1 Tablespoon cornstarch

Topping:

• 1 cup flour
• 2/3 cup brown sugar
• 2/3 cup butter, melted
• 2/3 cup oats
• 2/3 cup walnuts, chopped
• 2/3 teaspoon cinnamon
• 2 dashes, nutmeg

1. Preheat oven to 375.
2. Put cut strawberries and rhubarb into a 9×13 glass pan. Mix in sugar and cornstarch.
3. In a separate bowl, mix flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, oats, nuts, and butter. Sprinkle on top of fruit.
4. Bake for 45 minutes. Serve warm, with ice cream.