Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

I don't think my daughter sleeps at night.....I think she lies in wait. The slightest post 3am sound will have her springing to feet and ready to start the day, complete with list of requests of things she would like to do do today (color a picture, eat some yogurt, ride a llama??). She does not get this from me. I roll out of bed and crawl to the kitchen where my automatic coffee maker has (hopefully) brewed me a cup of industrial strength coffee. In the event that the coffee pot has not begun it's daily duty I press the button, grab a mug, and lie on the floor in the kitchen groaning and mumbling to myself.

All that to say that today I am having a friends toddler over and I wanted to get my morning routine in before they got here. So I woke up at 5:30. I got in a devotional, one load of laundry, and 20 minutes of yoga before my daughter awoke and began to tell me her list....chocolate milk? Blues Clues? Play outside?....No, No, and maybe after bubby wakes up. I'd like to tell you what all this has to do with rhubarb Pie, but I can't....You see I started writing this at 6 this morning...that was two cups of coffee, three loads of laundry, 20 make and freeze veggie burgers, one craft and story time, and seven hours of babysitting ago.....I'm kind of lost as to where I was going with this...so who wants a vague outline on how to make this delectable dessert eh?

I use Alton Browns pie crust recipe, but I use all butter....instead of butter and lard....I can almost hear my father shouting all the way over in California "What's wrong with lard? Nothing, you were raised on it. I was raised on it, and your grandparents were raised on it too". If you can hear him just ignore him, replace the lard with butter. No offense taken I hope Gramma and Pop.

Instead of a pie tin, I put this into a greased 8x8 casserole dish.

Then I stir together 3 cups chopped rhubarb (make very sure that you don't get any leaves in there), 2 cup sliced strawberries, 1 cup of sugar, the juice of one lemon, and 6 tbs flour. This goes on top of the pie crust.

On top of that I mix up this strueselly stuff...about 2 tbs flour, mixed well into 4 tbs brown sugar, and I cut butter into it until it gets all crumbly looking. This is sprinkled on top. Cover with foil and it goes into the oven for about 50 minutes. Check it at 30 minutes though, I have been using frozen rhubarb, which I'm sure increases the cooking time. It will be bubbly and oozy and smell delicious.

You are supposed to let a pie cool.....that is the hardest part about making a pie, in my humble opinion. You can eat this straight away if you would like, I won't tell. :)

I made this for my husbands birthday. We also ordered takeaway from a Turkish restaurant. I thought you all might enjoy some pictures of our meal.

These were filled with cheese and fresh herbs, they came with a tangy yogurt sauce not unlike raita. I will try to recreate it soon.

I ordered a couple of appetizers as they had no vegetarian main course....this was their fried vegetable dish. It had a nice mild flavor, and lots of eggplant and onion. I enjoyed it quite a bit.
This was an eggplant relish of sorts, it was very tangy and salty. I mixed it with the veggies and stuffed it all into a pita.