Pie and Stuff

There was creativity on a small scale at my house this weekend. First, I made a rhubarb-blueberry streusel pie--which looked a lot better fresh out of the oven than does this last lonely, crumbling, but still just as tasty piece. See, cutting into it and eating a wedge warm from the oven on Saturday night was paramount to taking a picture of it for posterity. And it was soooo good. But I made sure to schlep it over to my brother's and Dad's houses yesterday to share, lest my booty be busting out my capris.

I'll post the recipe below, mainly because the next time I make this, I don't want to have to haul out two three-ring recipe binders, Betty Crocker and the Gluten-Free Gourmet cookbooks, then decide to be all contrary and blaze my own trail. That's a lot of work for a pie.

The other thing I made was -- oh, wait a minute -- Dad? If you're reading this, please hit that little red X in the upper right-hand corner right now, or you'll spoil your Father's Day surprise. Okay, love you, bye-bye.

[He doesn't have a computer at home at the moment, but you never know; he might be visiting and looking in with someone else.]

Anyway, I made a table mat (is that what you call a runner that doesn't run?) for the table next to his easy chair. Said table is round, but he's got a square one on there right now and it seems to work okay. However, the one he's currently using is a Christmas table mat I made for him and Mom a couple years ago. This one:

And, well, it's JUNE, for Pete's sake.

So I have surreptitiously looked around his living room and taken note of a little wallpaper border's design, and came up with something similar that I think will work.

Except, did you know that when you cut a square into four pieces and then sew those pieces back together, you no longer have a square? Huh. So I had to improvise top and bottom borders to make it truly square.

I was going to do a piano key border, but trying out various fabrics for that took up most of an entire episode of Dateline on MSNBC. And why do I make my brain work so hard so late at night? If only the pervs interviewed by Chris Hansen on Dateline employed their mental capacities a fraction as much, they might not find themselves hearing, "Get on the ground! Get on the ground!" whilst being tackled by a half dozen armed law enforcement officers. Yeah, if Hansen's in the kitchen, you're only going to be partying with the Po-Po.

But I digress.

So I found a batik scrap that I had juuuust enough of, and went with that.

This means that sometime between now and Sunday, I'll be once again practicing my free-motion quilting as I stipple this little giftie. This time I feel more prepared though; I have a cold brew in the fridge.



Rhu-Blu Streusel Pie
1 prepared pie crust*
4-5 cups fresh rhubarb, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
2 cups blueberries (if using frozen, thaw and drain)
1 baking apple, peeled and sliced
3/4 cup sugar (may use up to 1-1/4 cups; I prefer mine on the tart side)
3-4 Tablespoons cornstarch

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Combine fruit, sugar, and cornstarch in a bowl. Mix well and transfer to prepared crust. Cover with streusel topping:

1/2 c. flour (I used 1/4 c. each rice flour and sorghum flour for gluten-free)
1/2 c. brown sugar
3/4 c. finely chopped pecans
6 T. butter or margarine (I used organic shortening for dairy-free)
1 t. cinnamon

Work streusel ingredients together until crumbly. Distribute on top of pie filling.

Bake pie for 60 minutes. If crust edge starts to get too brown, cover the edge only with foil about halfway through baking time.

*I used a great gluten-free pie crust recipe found here, and subbed organic shortening to make it dairy-free.