Something Home Groan: Rhubarb Grumble

[miss_s_b]

We had a friend over for sunday dinner yesterday because she's moving to Sweden and we're going to miss her. For pudding, we had Rhubarb grumble. The rhubarb was TECHNICALLY groan by my dad on his allotment, but I'm making an executive decision that this counts.

You will need:
- an oven and a lasagna dish or similar
- a hob and a saucepan
- some rhubarb - I don;t know how much in weight, but I used 5 stalks. They were big fat stalks though, so you might need more at supermarket size.
- some normal white granulated sugar
- 175g plain flour
- 110g muscovado sugar
- 110g butter
- some powedered cloves
- some powdered cinnamon
- custard (to serve)

Method:
- chop the rhubarb up into 1 inch lengths and put it in the saucepan with a little granulated sugar, on a low heat with the lid on.
- the rhubarb will start to break down and go mushy. Stir it up and check for sweetness. Add sugar to taste. You'll probably want it reasonably sweet, because the topping is not going to be overly sweet.
- once it is all mushy, cook it a bit longer (still on a low heat) to reduce it down a bit. You don't want it too liquid.
- put the stewed rhubarb in the bootm of the lasagna dish and leave to cool while you make the crumble topping
- put the oven on to preheat at about 180c
- mix together the flour, muscovado sugar, butter, cloves, and cinnamon with your hands till you get clumpy breadcrumb consistency
- put the topping on top of the rhubarb and shove in the oven till you get rhubarby bits bubbling up through the topping and it's lovely and brown
- eat with custard

Something home-grown: apple and thyme crumble

[el_staplador]

I don't know why I suggested this challenge. (Twice, apparently.) I grow very little. But I do have a herb planter. The apples were also home-grown, but by my in-laws.

Ingredients
4oz plain flour
2oz butter or equivalent
1oz granulated sugar (I didn't have any, so used caster, but granulated is much crunchier and nicer)
about 3 apples (I started out with five, chucked one in its entirety, and cut off bits of two others)
4 sprigs lemon thyme
a little more sugar
water

Equipment
oven
mixing bowl
spoon
ovenproof dish
sharp knife
peeler (or do it with a knife, if you're brave)


Method

Preheat oven to about 190degC.

To make the crumble topping, rub the fat into the flour until it looks like fine breadcrumbs. Stir in the sugar.

Peel and core the apples. Remove any manky bits too. Slice what's left and put it in the dish along with the lemon thyme. (You can either strip the leaves from the stem and mix them in with the apples, or leave them intact and remove the whole lot after cooking.) Stir in about a tablespoon of sugar and a couple of tablespoons of water. Make sure the apples are distributed evenly across the dish and then spoon the crumble over the top, covering all the apple.

Bake for half an hour or until the topping has become pale golden.