Rhubarb Apple Crisp

It's Spring, which means Rhubarb!  If you're lucky enough to know somebody who has some - and even luckier to have someone willing to go cut it for you.  Oh, I would definitely go cut my own rhubarb because I love it, but my friend Peggy lives closer to our friend Alice than I do, so she gets me some when she gets hers.  I use it in muffins, rhubarb bread, this Rhubarb Pudding Cake that I adore, and pretty much anything else I can think of.  And I freeze lots of it so I can have rhubarb throughout the year.

Today I was thinking Rhubarb Apple Crisp, so I went looking for recipes - as if I don't already have plenty of my own recipes - like that pudding cake that I'm now wishing I'd remembered and made.  But anyway, I found this one for Apple-Rhubarb Crisp that looked pretty good, so I started there.  But I wanted a different topping, because my friend Peggy, who cuts the rhubarb, doesn't eat wheat, and I wanted to avoid using flour.  That's when I found the Apple Cranberry Crisp recipe in my favorite cookbook ever - The Best of Mennonite Fellowship Meals - and I had a note right there in the cookbook that the recipe is also good with rhubarb and apples, as well as a modified topping recipe - without flour.  So I used the basic idea of the recipe I'd looked up - because I liked the idea of the juice mixed in with the fruit - with the topping I had written in the cookbook.

Rhubarb Apple Crisp
adapted from About.com Southern Food and The Best of Mennonite Fellowship Meals

Ingredients:

• 4 cups chopped rhubarb (fresh or frozen)
• 3 medium apples, cored and diced
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
• 3 T. pineapple orange juice (or orange juice)
• 6 T. butter, melted
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup whole oats
• 1/3 cup quick oats
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans

ready to bake

Directions:

1. Mix rhubarb, apples, brown sugar, cinnamon and juice.  Place in 2-qt baking dish.  (or mix directly in the baking dish)
2. Mix topping ingredients - melted butter, brown sugar, oats, and pecans - until crumbly, and spread evenly over fruit.
3. Bake at 350° for 1 hour or until fruit is tender and bubbly and topping is browned.
4. Serve with vanilla ice cream.

Yum!