Ben’s cousin, his wife and their new baby came for a visit a couple weekends ago, and since the baby isn’t quite up to restaurant meals we stayed in on Saturday night. We had a simple dinner and topped it off with a strawberry rhubarb crumble I found on Smitten Kitchen.

The good news: Strawberry and Rhubarb! It’s nearly summer!

The recipe is easy and I loved the flavor of the topping. The lemon zest gave a lovely citrus scent, and the texture (it contains raw sugar and the large amount of melted butter) is fantastic.

Two things about the filling, though. I cut my rhubarb too big, so it took forever to cook and it didn’t combine with the strawberries quite enough. Still good, though. The bigger problem was the gummi-factor. The recipe calls for 1/2 cup of flour and I think that must have been too much for the fruit I was using; I will investigate other recipes to see if that could be it. I felt like there was a gummy biscuit batter surrounding the fruit, and sometimes there wasn’t much fruit to be found in it.

I should have known I was headed somewhere doughy when the filling looked like this before baking, but honestly I haven’t made any fruit pies and have only made a couple cobblers, always with peaches:

Bleurgh, let’s cover that up with buttery deliciousness:

All in all I’d give it a B, all on account of the filling. I will have to try again; what a sacrifice!

That ice cream, by the way, is Ginger-Molasses from Christina’s in Inman Square. Mmmmm.

The rest of dinner, for the record:
Salad with crispy goat cheese cakes (squash slices of goat cheese gently, dip in egg white then panko (with salt and pepper); saute in olive oil):

Then grilled sausages and asparagus, and a big bowl of Lydia’s pasta salad.