Have you ever “discovered” a food and suddenly you wonder how you missed it before? Rhubarb is one of those foods for me. Now that it is rhubarb season (spring and early summer), I decided to find out why my friends and family wax poetic over what looks like large red celery. My first foray into using rhubarb was a rhubarb-apple-pear crisp, and boy, was it ever amazing!

Because rhubarb is tart, it pairs beautifully with slightly sweeter fruits. It also goes wonderfully with cinnamon and nuts. Those characteristics make it a natural for a mixed fruit crisp. With an easy gluten-free nut and oat topping (similar to the one on my apple and pear crisp) and a scoop or two of ice cream, the result was divine.

Luckily for me, as I put rhubarb on my “must learn about this” list, OXO offered me a Greensaver Produce Keeper and Melissa’s Produce provided a lovely bunch of rhubar. What great timing! After cutting the rhubarb to fit into the container, I read up on how the Greensaver works and put the container in the refrigerator. Five days later, my rhubarb was still fresh and ready to be cooked into the crisp.

Although I’ve written about food waste and I have good intentions, my refrigerator produce bins are often in a sorry state. I tend to buy too much produce and crush it into the bins without paying attention to the optimal humidity for the items I’m storing.

The OXO Greensavers are a good solution to my less-than-optimal produce storage tendencies. They use non-toxic carbon filters to trap and remove the natural gasses that accelerate spoilage, have a closable vent to keep produce at the appropriate humidity level, and use a plastic mesh basket to hold the produce above the floor of the container.

Refrigerator produce bins are great (if used correctly), but they don’t have the charcoal filter and I often have more produce than can fit into the bins. The Greensaver produce keepers come in several sizes, so I could use them for overflow or for the most perishable of my produce hoard. 

If I get more organized about my produce-storage, my produce may last longer and not come tumbling off shelves when I open the refrigerator. That could be a whole new chapter in my kitchen life.

By the way, contrary to what I’ve always thought, humidity requirements are not dictated by whether the item is a fruit or a vegetable. For example, I learned from OXO’s handy produce storage guide that most fruit should be stored in low humidity, but rhubarb needs high. Most vegetables should be stored in high humidity, but eggplants and squash are among the vegetables that should be stored in low humidity. Who knew? Certainly not me. 

Back to the story of my introduction to cooking rhubarb and the crisp. My rhubarb guru is Susan Bradley of The Luna Café. If you are a rhubarb newbie like me, take a look at her rhubarb primer. (I followed her advice not to peel the rhubarb even though other well-respected chefs and cookbook authors tell you to do so.) Susan has lots of great rhubarb recipes on her site, and I plan to try several of them – the rhubarb cornmeal upside-down cake and the spiced rhubarb chutney are two that especially appeal to me.

But first, I wanted to use my gluten-free crisp recipe as a template for a rhubarb dessert.

Gluten-Free Rhubarb, Apple and Pear Crisp

Servings – 8-10     Cost – $8-10

Ingredients

Topping

• ½ cup each of ground oats (regular or quick, but not instant) and walnuts
• 1 cup old fashioned oats (not quick or instant)
• ½ cup roughly chopped walnuts
• ⅔ cup dark brown sugar, packed
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• ¼ teaspoon kosher or fine sea salt
• 8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, cool but not frozen + more to butter the dish

Fruit

• 4 cups rhubarb sliced into 1-inch pieces (about 16 ounces)
• 2 cups apple pieces roughly the size of your thumb (about 10 ounces) from peeled and quartered apples
• 2 cups pear pieces roughly the size of your thumb (about 12 ounces) from peeled and quartered pears
• ¼ cup cornstarch
• ⅔ cup dark brown sugar, packed
• ⅓ cup maple syrup
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• ¼ teaspoon kosher or fine sea salt
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 1 teaspoon orange zest (zest of 1 medium orange)

Equipment

• Pan ( 8 inches x 11 inches yields a deep crisp; 9 inches by 13 inches works too for a thinner one.)
• Measuring cups
• Measuring spoons
• Cutting board
• Knife
• 2 bowls –1 medium and 1 small
• Large fork and spoon for mixing
• Grater (for zesting orange)
• Peeler (for apples and pears)

Preparation

• Butter the pan and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
• Mix the ground oats and walnuts in a small bowl and set aside ¼ cup of the mixture for the fruit. To the rest, add the oats, chopped walnuts, dark brown sugar, cinnamon and salt. Mix well with a fork and add the butter cut into 8 or more pieces. Mix the butter in (I do it with my hands, but you can use a fork if you’d rather, until the butter is mostly incorporated.

• Mix the chopped fruits together. Add the ¼ cup of the reserved ground oat/walnut mixture and the rest of the fruit ingredients. Pour the mixture into the buttered dish and add the topping gently by spoonfuls, so that the entire pan is covered.

• Bake the crisp for 50-60 minutes, rotating the pan front-to-back about midway through. It is done when the topping is browned and the fruit mixture is bubbling.

Most people seem to like crisp warm, but I am fine with it cool or even straight out of the refrigerator. Ice cream is optional, but highly recommended!

OXO provided me with a 5-qt. Greensaver Produce Keeper and Melissa’s Produce gave me the rhubarb used in this post. As always, all opinions expressed are my own.