Strawberry Rhubarb Crumble {Recipe}

If you're looking for the perfect way to use that rhubarb in the backyard (like me) then this is the recipe to try! Strawberry Rhubarb Crumble. Besides all the chopping it's pretty easy to make.

Below are the pictures of the rhubarb that we have growing in our backyard. We have 2 huge plants of it. You can see with me standing beside it how big the leaves are. But, you don't use the leaves, they are poisonous to eat, only use the stalks.

If your plant is blooming flowering stalks, you should break off the flowering parts so that the plant can send it's energy to creating the leaves instead of flowers. Mine is growing huge and even with the flowering stalks still on there it seemed to be growing fine.

Pick your leaves (you can see how big they are with Ariana holding them up). I used 3 good sized stalks and got about 3 cups worth of usable rhubarb out of it.

Chop up your rhubarb and strawberries and we'll get started with the actually recipe part!

Strawberry Rhubarb Crumble

Filling:

3 cups strawberries, roughly chopped

3 cups rhubarb, chopped

3/4 cup sugar

3 tablespoons cornstarch

zest of 1 lemon

2 tablespoons lemon juice

Topping:

1/4 cup rolled oats

3/4 cup all purpose flour

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar, lightly packed

1/4 teaspoon cardamom

1/8 teaspoon salt

zest of 1 lemon

1/2 cup unsalted butter (1 stick), cold, diced 

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C)

2. In a large bowl mix together strawberries, rhubarb, sugar, cornstarch, lemon zest and lemon juice. Mix well and set aside.

3. In a medium bowl mix together oats, flour, sugar, brown sugar, cardamom, salt and lemon zest. Using a pastry cutter or fork work butter into mixture until crumbly.

4. Pour filling into sprayed pie pan. Top with crumble topping. 

5. Bake for 45 to 50 minutes until top is golden brown and filling is bubbly.

6. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.

Little Gymnast

Over the weekend Ariana had her gymnastics exhibition. It was several classes combined and it ended up being about 3 hours long. She did the vault, floor routine, beam, and bars and it was so much fun watching her do something she loves!

At 4 1/2 she is the youngest, and smallest in her class but she keeps up with the best of them! The past few months she's been learning to do backward rolls, handstands, cartwheels, flips on the bar, and turns, jumps and forward rolls on the balance beam.

Here are a FEW of my favorite shots from the day.

My Mother's Day

Mother's Day is such a special day, especially now that Ariana's old enough to make me pretty gifts, drawings and cards. I love getting her handmade goodies! This year in preschool they made ceramic handprints. These aren't like the usual handprint that's sunken into the clay but raised up. There is also a sweet poem on the back that had me tearing up and I could barely read it out loud.

My Mother's Day consisted of sleeping in (a little) while she and Daddy made these awesome homemade cinnamon rolls. I got to spend time leisurely waking up and enjoyed reading a few chapters of my book before Daddy reminded her of the present from preschool and I heard her getting it out of the hiding place in her room. 

She dashed in with a "Happy Mother's Day!" and snuggled on the bed with me while I opened my cards and the handmade gift. The rest of the day consisted of me indulging in too many cinnamon rolls and relaxing with my family. It was pretty awesome! 

Of course, living in Germany presents challenges when trying to order items online (even if you order them weeks in advance) and my custom rings from Olive Bungalow got here a day late. But, they were beautiful! A hand crafted customized peridot ring (my birthstone as the mom) and a citrine ring (Ariana's birthstone) as the smaller one. When our little boy is born, I'll get his birthstone made into a stackable ring too. Richard and Ariana did such a great job picking pretty ones! And it was a great surprise too!

I also got a pretty pot of flowers for the window in our room with my favorite color butterfly as decoration. Ariana got a matching flower for her room too, it's pretty sweet!

The Shopping Mama

I'm SUPER excited to announce that I've been collaborating with Kate over at The Shopping Mama as a new blogger. 

The Shopping Mama is such an awesome site that shares the greatest of all things kids. With everything unique and modern you would want for kids, babies and even mama's. They offer product reviews, cute finds, great deals, and super awesome giveaways of the best stuff around!

I'm loving all these fun neon colors for Spring, and I've gathered some of the best of these pops of color into one place to make it easy to shop!

My first post went live today! Hop on over to find out more about this roundup of cute Neon Spring Girl Clothes!

Spring Break 2013: Salzburg, Austria

For our Spring Break trip 2013 we took a road trip to 2 different countries, 3 different cities. I already shared our visit to Vienna, Austria and Budapest, Hungary. 

Our third and last stop was Salzburg Austria!

Salzburg was a quaint little town on the river surrounded by the beautiful Austrian Alps. It's right in the middle of all the Sound of Music filming locations. I've never seen the film (insert gasp here) so I wouldn't know but I loved the area!

There were so many churches. There was one point in the town where we were standing and we could see at least 6 steeples. There was of course a castle on the hill overlooking the town.

 Mozart's birthplace was a popular spot for tourists. 

Mozartplatz was a nice square where some kids were playing futbol (soccer) and there was a big statue of Mozart on one end.

 (See even in this picture above, you can see 3 church steeples!)

We dined at Cafe Mozart where we had some yummy food. I had a beef stroganoff and Richard had a goulash and dumpling and red cabbage. We had to try the Salzburger nockerln which is a famous dessert in Austria. It was a sweet souffle and to be honest we didn't see what all the fuss was about. There wasn't really much special about it. But now we can say we've tried it. 

Salzburger nockerln

Ariana loved having her own little nook in the hotel. Here she is "reading" in the chair by her bed.

The next day it was raining so we drove about 30 minutes to the Saltmines to tour them and stay out of the rain. We each got to wear a salt-miner getup and ride a train down 5 floors into the mines. It was pretty interesting (especially the huge slides) but we couldn't take photos inside since it was a working salt-mine.

Mirabell Palace and Gardens were pretty nice that time of year. Maybe in a few more weeks they would really be blooming but we still enjoyed them.

Ariana had a great time taking pictures of all the flowers and statues, especially the unicorns!

Love locks on bridges are common in European cities. You attach a lock to a bridge with your names or initials on them and throw the key in the water. It's suppose to signify your everlasting love. We've never done it but  I really liked this jumbo sized lock.

Mozart toys in shop windows and classical clothing/costumes from the Sound of Music.

Salzburg was a pretty old city! This was our view on the way out of town heading home.