Fruit is better with a crumbly topping

After a remarkably unsuccessful trip to my neighborhood farmers market last Thursday evening after work, I was feeling a little down on spring produce. I went with precisely one thing in mind - asparagus. It was much needed for my veggie contribution to the Easter food extravaganza, and why not pick up the asparagus from the guy who grows it instead of the faceless corporate supermarket six blocks the other direction? Three cheers for the farmer! Except in this case...there were zero vegetables to be found. Seriously, ZERO. I don't know if it was a function of me arriving around 6:15 when the whole thing kicks off at 3:00 and there was some crazy run on veggies, or maybe it's still too early in the season for the veggie guys to think it's worth the trip, or maybe they should rename the whole thing from "farmers market" to "local purveyors of soap and orchids," because that's about all there was to it when I showed up.

Faceless corporate supermarket stepped in to save the day, of course, and asparagus is even on sale. I'll try to support the little guy, I really will, but give me something to work with here.

Faced with nature's bounty and lots of "sale sale sale!" signs at Safeway (there, now it's named but still faceless), I got a little carried away with produce purchases, forgetting that 1) I need to lug this stuff home and 2) I am one person and can only eat so much, and non-canned/boxed things only last so long. I don't think I've ever knowingly had rhubarb in my life, though, so I had to buy some and figure out what to do with it! It's fun tackling mystery ingredients!

This is what I did with. Strawberry-rhubarb crumble. It was really, really delicious. Especially with a dollop of fresh whipped cream. If anyone's actually inspired to make that, you might go with a tad less flour for the fruit or maybe substitute some cornstarch, but now I'm going all baking-girl on you when I should just be enjoying dessert.

Photo is completely courtesy of Deb at Smitten Kitchen, although mine actually did look remarkably similar to that. I figure it's always a good sign when your kitchen adventures turn out a product that looks pretty much like the picture you were striving for.

Speaking of produce abundance, I still (yes, a week later) have a pineapple I need to hack into. Oh, to be the Vaughns and have cool things like a pineapple corer/slicer to make this task a little bit easier. It might be time to invest in the awesome chef's knife I've had my eye on to assist last weekend's knife purchase with my produce disassembly. Or maybe I should just escape from the kitchen. Oh, yeah, I also made blackberry streusel muffins by slightly adapting a recipe from good ol' Betty Crocker, which provided me with a rather tasty breakfast option for the week. Must escape from the kitchen.