Summer Fun!

Whee! We have some friends in from out of town and we've been having fun!! These kinds of things are what really make summer great!

We went strawberry picking and last night we had Strawberry Rhubarb Pie and we used this recipe, substituting 1 C sugar for 1 C honey. We also skipped the arrowroot and just used 1/4 C flour and 1 T cornstarch. And we used this recipe for the crust! Thanks Kittee! It turned out soooo super nice, although we used regular wheat flour instead of pastry so it was hard to handle without cracking... BUT it did not get soggy (even when we forgot to prebake it) and it was so tasty and good! Oh, and we doubled it to make a lattice top- so pretty! My friend did such a great job with it, I'm afraid she got stuck with the tricky dough while I made Tofu Paprikash. She also whipped up a great warm vinagrette type dressing with some spring onions from her garden for the spinach and it was so yummy! Did I luck out or what?

Pie crust;
1 C flour
1 C ww pastry flour
2/3 C vegetable shortening
1 t salt
up to 1/2 C water

Filling;
4 C rhubarb cut into 3/4" pieces
1 C sugar
2 C strawberries
1/4 C flour
1 T cornstarch
1/2 t cinnamon

Make dough, cutting shortening into flour, then adding water SLOWLY until dough sticks together and handles well. Roll out half of the dough and fit into pie dish. Cut 2nd half into strips.
Meanwhile, mix all filling ingredients together.
Pour into pie crust, cover with lattice, weaving strips over and under each other and bake at 350 degrees for one hour.
Mmmm.





























My friend also brought some hummus she'd made from some garbanzo beans she ordered- she had had them at an Indian restaurant when they lived in Japan and the translation from Japanese is 'black garbanzo'. It makes a really good hummus! You can see the color is kind of caramel-y and the texture is more texture-y.

Hope you're enjoying the summer too! It's finally here!