trampoline days and rhubarb

Our last few days have been spent doing a lot of nothing and a lot of  ' being '.... like cats that is, moving with the sun around our patch, soaking up every last bit of its goodness before the indoor days of winter are upon us. As the ground is now heavy with dew in the mornings and the earth is oozing the damp of cooler nights the days of  kicking back on the grass are well and truly over until spring. We have however discovered that the good old trampoline which was really only ever considered good for this:

 is now just as good for this:

Throwing a woollen rug over the tramp to cosy it up and spreading out a basket of  essentials is just the thing for being in that delicious Autumn sunshine and the best part is ... its portable. The sun moves, and so do we, simply dragging the tramp to a newfound patch of sunshine. It's also proving the place to be for star gazing, day dreaming and rhubarb pie eating.

 

Rhubarb holds many childhood memories for me. It was always that odd vegetable in the vegie garden that we were warned no to eat raw and stewed rhubarb with a sprinkling of  brown sugar was a treat well asked for in our house. Heading  home after a trip north last week, we dropped in to visit with some long time friends on their farm. After cups of tea, home made biscuits, goat patting, lamb feeding, egg collecting and  raspberry eating we were sent on our merry way with a bag full of vegie garden goodness which included enough rhubarb to make this:

We moved a year ago and I desperately miss my old vegie garden with its herbs and rhubarb plants. A new garden is in the pipeline but for the time being precious gifted rhubarb is oh so gratefully received. So after a busy dayI knew a pie was in order and with not enough  spices to make the dahl I had  been dreaming of  and a Mama that only needs the teeniest  excuse not to go to the store , I decided that rhubarb pie was on the menu for dinner, ahem, an early dessert.  After all rhubarb is a vegetable. A lesson well learnt  from my Mama was that if it had been a long day and pancakes, or in this case rhubarb pie, was what your little heart desired , even if it was dinner time, then pancakes it would be. I have never written down my Mum's rhubarb pie recipe, it has been firmly etched in my memory since childhood so this is a first, just for all of you. It is so simple and oh so yummy.

Rhubarb Pie

• A good bunch of rhubarb stalks ( around 6-10 depending on size of pie dish and size of stalks)
• 1 quantity of sweet shortcrust pastry ( we like to make our own. Any good baking book will have a recipe, or you could use the pre -rolled store bought kind)
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• caster sugar for sprinkling on top
• 1 egg white

1. Preheat oven 180^o C.
2. Grease a pie dish and line with pastry.
3. Wash rhubarb stalks and roughly chop.
4. Fill pie dish with rhubarb
5. Sprinkle over brown sugar ( depending on the size of your pie you may need more than 1/2 a cup. The idea is to cover the rhubarb, so it is just poking through the sugar.)
6. Close pie with pastry and seal. I like to use a fork and roll the edges up.
7. Decorate with left over pastry bits and poke a couple of steam holes in the pastry.
8. Glaze with egg white and sprinkle with caster sugar
9. Bake 1hr or until golden on top
10. Consume with lashings of ice cream ( cream or custard works well too!)

Enjoy on a trampoline or any way you like!