Rhubarb Custard Pie

 

There is a beautiful rhubarb garden ready to begin harvesting... so of course we have to repeat one of our favorite long-time recipes "Rhubarb Custard Pie". My buddy Jan loves rhubarb custard, too, and it's a great old-fashioned dessert. If we had a spring church pie festival, I'd be entering this in a contest because it's a great mix for rhubarb lovers! I'm repeating this because I'm developing a new proposal for Love Inspired and I've got to focus on that... and farmwork! Because when the sun comes out.... oh mylanta, the work begins!

If you do not like rhubarb, then this post is not for you.

I love rhubarb pie. I love Strawberry/Rhubarb jam. I love the bright, summer blend of flavors and the imagery that goes along with it....

Big, leafy rhubarb plants, bursting with flavor!

Delicate strawberries, shiny and red.

And the marriage of the two is wonderful!!!

But this old-fashioned recipe is wonderful in its own rite. I first discovered this recipe in my mother's Betty Crocker cookbook, circa 1959....

And when they reprinted the cookbook on its 50th anniversary, I bought a copy! It was so exciting!

The melding of rhubarb and custard might sound odd, but it's not.

It's amazing.

Custard, hinted with nutmeg, is delicious.

Rhubarb, the bite and the tang, acts like an opposites attract romance.

Put them together and you have a delightfully "New England" Yankee kind of dish.  I had pie crust frozen and fresh rhubarb and berries, and small pie pans, so I played a little! For this week, let's focus on the Rhubarb Custard Pie that just might earn a spot in a Double S Ranch book!


Pastry for two-crust pie

For filling:

6 cups chopped rhubarb
1 3.4 cup sugar
1/3 cup flour
1 teaspoon nutmeg

Mix dry ingredients together, then toss with rhubarb

Line a 9" pie plate with crust. Fill crust with rhubarb/sugar/flour/spice mix.

In a medium sized bowl whisk:

3 eggs
4 tablespoons milk

Whisk completely and pour over fruit/sugar mix in pie crust.

Add top crust. (I like the lattice look, but it can be any kind of top crust.)

Flute edges. Cut slits in top if you used a full crust.

Bake at 400° for about 45-60 minutes, until filling is cooked, and custard seems set. If your crust edges get too brown, consider covering them with narrow strips of aluminum foil before you place in oven.

Trying to cover them at 400 degress is TOO HOT.

You will burn your hands.

Don't do that.

You're welcome.

I will admit I ate far too much of this pie. But it was sooooo delicious! So absolutely fun and yummy, and you can actually pick up pieces of this pie (the custard "sets" the filling) and eat like Danish... Because it holds together so well!

I love fruits of the season! I love playing in the kitchen! And I love re-visiting old favorites and giving them a new life, here in the world of the World Wide Web!

Dave is avidly working on the farm.... And trying to stay ahead of deer and bugs.

In the yard, I've been busily rebuilding an old water feature, a pond and a waterfall I created about fifteen years ago.... And it's coming along! My reward when I'm done writing is to go get dirty!

So much fun in a garden, and it brings me such peace.


And this! This was to celebrate that I discovered I passed the ONE MILLION BOOKS milestone back in the spring!!! HIP HIP HOORAY!!!!! Happy dancing in upstate!!!! This is MacKenzie holding the clutch of balloons from Son #3 who is busily writing his own book in Arizona right now...

And some of us went to Abbott's Frozen Custard to celebrate!!!! Do you see how they're dressed? It was COLD here, LOL! But the cold did not dissuade us from Abbott's!!!!

Newest Abbott's Lover! Magdalena got to make her first trip to Abbott's and share Grammy's banana split! So amazingly good, I got "Best Grammy Ever!" award!!!

And two of the boys jumped in out front to help me dig out old ivy roots... Xavier and Logan, hard at work... and the bonus of this? They created new holes for our froggy friends!!!! We love frogs and toads on the farm!

Almost summer.... the classes with kids are winding down, school days are sporadic with Regents testing for the older kids, and the younger kids are tired because the sun is keeping them up late... and tired kids get a little grumpy!

But with snuggles and ice cream, we can keep the "Grumpy" at bay!!!!

Ruth Logan Herne is still pinching herself over the million book mark, and you can find her pinching herself at ruthloganherne.com or on facebook where she loves chatting with people!!! Or here at the cafe, talking kitchens and food and fun, or over at Ruthy's Place.... And in Seekerville, where a group of wonderful authors loves to talk about God, romance, writing... and really cute heroes!