The rain is a grey curtain and Sundays can be hard to overcome at the best of times. What better than to make a glorious Crumble to banish the demon of noontide.The human condition is so profoundly unfair and I have always sensed this on Sundays more than on any other day. There is so much quietness and stillness around. Nature seems to sense it too. Milo looks at me and is aware, but I doubt he is as aware of his mortality the same as we humans are. You, dear readers, can perhaps sense that a good Crumble is the only answer.
The rhubarb clump this years is monumental. One could almost climb the stalks with the help of a small ladder or by Helvi piggybacking on me. For a while Helvi and I spoke about making the annual rhubarb apple crumble. The Christmas period was too hectic. I need absolute stillness and total freedom including unquestioning obeisance of all kitchen utensils including wooden spoons, sugar bowl, oven, water, handtowels, closely followed by cinnamon sticks, shredded coconut, even 200 grams of butter and… secret ingredients. But of that later.
I also have to take time to rub hands together in glee in anticipated joyful beatings of overwhelming sadness and sardonically smiling curmudgeons. ( into submission) After due contemplation I cut the rhubarb stalks, five large ones and three green apples which I put in saucepan with cinnamon sticks and half a cup of sugar. With a little water I brought this to boil. I mixed self raising flour, sugar, shredded coconut and my secret ingredients; blue berries and couscous! This was then clumped with cold butter ready to be spread over the cooked rhubarb and apple. The couscous was an afterthought. I did not have the oats or other roughage to give the crumble, the well…, the crumble. The lot with the crumble spread over the fruit was cooked in the oven at 180c for about 25 minutes. The couscous in the crumble was a huge success and I now plan to patent this ingredient.
I have yet to read about couscous in a rhubarb Crumble. Have you? All in all, the Crumble was the best ever. The Sunday has a smile now as well, the rain in retreat.
Oosterman Treats Blog 
January 11, 2015 at 5:28 am |
Oh, that sounds so vey delicious. Sinfully so.
How clever of you to use couscous. May I nominate you as the next Masterchef?
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January 11, 2015 at 8:14 am |
Yes, you are welcome. Can’t wait to become famous as the couscous chef.
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January 11, 2015 at 7:26 am |
Look what just tumbled into my email messages:
On this date in 1770, Benjamin Franklin introduced rhubarb to America. He was representing the American colonies as an ambassador in London, and sent a crate of rhubarb to his friend John Bartram. The plant, native to central Asia, had been introduced in Europe by traders; the rhubarb that Franklin sent to America had come to London from Siberia. Rhubarb first appeared in American seed catalogs in 1829, and soon became a popular ingredient in pies. John Bartram was also responsible for introducing kohlrabi and poinsettias to America.
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January 11, 2015 at 8:17 am |
That is amazing. Rhubarb in large quantities can be toxic. I read a story about a good wife wanting to please her husband who was very fond of rhubarb. She gave him lots of rhubarb which killed him. A sad end!
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January 11, 2015 at 8:24 am
She should have given him the couscous of life, Gerard.
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January 11, 2015 at 8:29 am
The leaves are even more toxic. The good thing is you have to eat 30 kilo of leaves before it kills you.
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January 11, 2015 at 8:30 am
Oh darling, shall we do the couscous tonight?
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January 11, 2015 at 9:16 am
Was this caused by the stem or the leaf – there is someone I need to get rid of.
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January 11, 2015 at 10:20 am
I thought it was the stem. However, I think I might have got this story mixed up. It wasn’t the rhubarb that killed the husband . It was caused by his fondness of apple pips. Apparently the wife collected hundreds of pips and surprised him on his birthday. He keeled over soon after but not before he thanked her for that lovely surprise. There is something biblical about that. Eve gave the apple never just pips.
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January 11, 2015 at 8:36 am |
Ooohh, some great notes there about the spread of rhubarb and how to kill your spouse!;-) Me, I thoroughly dislike the stuff (rhubarb, I mean, not elimination of spouses.) Can’t understand the fascination for it.
But I am partial to a good crumble. Never heard of a couscous topping, though it makes the whole deal sound a lot healthier. I put porridge oats on top of mine to salve my conscience.
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January 11, 2015 at 10:22 am |
Yes, that was the problem . I did not have the oats and compromised when I found the packet of couscous. Pssst. Keep it quiet I haven’t told Helvi and she hasn’t read my post yet.
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January 11, 2015 at 9:17 am |
Sundays only exist if you let them.
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January 11, 2015 at 10:24 am |
Yes, but that only applies after a bad Sunday has passed. That sort of clear insight doesn’t easily occur on dark Sundays.
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January 11, 2015 at 12:44 pm |
Ah Ha! You are a fellow ‘Sunday-itis’ sufferer I see. My symptoms don’t generally start until late-afternoon/early evening and then BHAM! away we go. The only cure as you so rightly point out, is life-affirming comfort food and maybe something nice to drink and possibly a good movie, though when Sunday-itis hits hard there’s really nothing like a good sob to fill that empty hole of nothing-ness, that cursed ‘fin de la semaine’ veil of doom…..
And weirdly, very weirdly, before I even read your post, I too was thinking of making a crumble today – how’s that for ‘spooky action at a distance’ (Einstein) Best wishes from a fellow Sunday-itis sufferer.
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January 11, 2015 at 9:21 pm |
As a teen-age apprentice spectacle maker, I used to get the up- coming ‘workman’s’ weekly train ticket on a Sunday afternoon in my suburb of Revesby. Boy, those Sunday afternoon walks to the station was the epitome of desolation.
The Venetian blinds were down, all shops locked up, a few newspaper pages blowing about, and if it wasn’t for a solitary station dog, scratching its fleas, one could easily imagine one had walked onto a scene of Neville Shute’s ‘On the beach.’ The suburban deadness palpitating.
Afterwards one just wished to go to bed clutching the train ticket and hoping it would all pass.
Monday morning, I leaped out of bed. What a relief. I survived another Sunday.
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January 11, 2015 at 2:44 pm |
Rhubarb lovers unite! In Minnesota when I was a child, some called it “pie plant.” One of my most cherished recipes is written in my Grandmother’s hand for a rhubarb bread. Oh, so very delicious! Brilliant idea with the couscous.
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January 11, 2015 at 9:07 pm |
Thank you for your kind words. United we stand brandishing our rhubarb stalks. We shall overcome. Just mark my words.
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January 11, 2015 at 8:16 pm |
I believe this recipe needs to be tested by an independent observer: kindly post me a large (VERY !) slice …
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January 11, 2015 at 9:05 pm |
Here is a slice and have taken the liberty to add a large scoop of vanilla icecream. I am most honoured by your interest in my attempt to add the couscous to a recipe dating back to Louis the XVIII during his ascension to the throne of the House of Bourbon.
Louis took a slice of plain crumble and history credited him with saying; Mon Dieux, c’est tres bien. But, in order for the recipe not to fall in foreign hands had the master chef be-headed.
History can be cruel.
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January 11, 2015 at 9:16 pm
Idiot.
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January 11, 2015 at 9:25 pm
Mercy bien, madame.
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January 12, 2015 at 12:35 am |
My goodness. You are a bakery chef too. I love rhubarb but must buy the frozen kind because the fresh is terribly expensive. I have my mother’s recipe that requires strawberries and tapioca and sugar. It is the best dang dessert.
Rhubarb will not grow where I live. The summers are too hot and the climate in general is not to its liking.
.
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January 12, 2015 at 3:09 am |
Yes petsetc. ,real men make Crumble. Our Rhubarb has grown enormous this year, a real jungle. One almost expects a Japanese soldier to emerge from it and surrender.
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January 12, 2015 at 3:51 am
Getting to eat a rhubarb pie is a very good reason to oneself up and stop fighting. Have you ever seen people who have coffee and a pie fighting each other.
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January 12, 2015 at 1:16 am |
Rainy Sundays are especially made for the sake of bakery, aren’t they? 😀
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January 12, 2015 at 5:14 am |
I’m sure of it. There must be millions baking Rhubarb crumble in Holland seeing most Sundays there are rainy.
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January 12, 2015 at 7:16 pm |
I thought the idea of using couscous to thicken was brilliant, and no doubt delicious.
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January 13, 2015 at 1:17 am |
Yes, it made the crumble nice and crunchy. There is only one slice left. Here it is…for you dear kayti.
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January 12, 2015 at 9:44 pm |
I’m hungry all over again just looking at it. I have been searching online for a link to Charles Trenet’s les infants s’ennuie le Dimanche for you, but can’t find a suitable one. I love my recording.
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January 13, 2015 at 1:24 am |
Thank you, glad it made you hungry. The crumble is finished but there are new rhubarb stalks shooting up skywards with astonishing speed. I’ll make a new batch of crumble with couscous in about a week’s time.
I listened to Charles Trenet’s singing, rather sweet and soothing.
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January 13, 2015 at 4:05 am |
Is that couscous straight from the packet or the solid lump in the saucepan after one has attempted to cook it?
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January 13, 2015 at 4:43 am |
It is straight from the packet. It gives the crumble amazing ‘grit’. Not unlike the grit you and friends show doing rowing like the clapper and then running another 12 km next morning..
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