I'm home sick today with a sore throat. The upside is it gives me a rare chance to blog before 8:30 at night. I made this pie on Sunday night but wasn't feeling well enough to write about it last night.

I like Strawberry-Rhubarb pie and I was going to make it before the apple pie but I couldn't find any rhubarb at the store, either fresh or frozen. I even went to two different stores and took my time walking up and down the produce aisle taking care to look for the celery-like ruby red stalks that I knew would be easy to overlook. No luck! I made apple instead. Then my roomie hopped on her bike to one of the two stores I had already been to. I got a call some time later asking me if I'd like her to buy some rhubarb. You can't imagine my surprise! I thought she was joking. I mean I looked high and low for the rhubarb and it was right there by the Swiss chard (I know I looked there).

You may be wondering what rhubarb tastes like, uncooked. I admit I wondered too and took a bit of a piece I'd cut for the pie. It was unpleasantly sour at first and tasted a lot like chard, in fact, but after a little bit it got a little better and tasted a lot like green apple. My book, "On Food and Cooking" says about rhubarb: "Rhubarb is a vegetable that often masquerades as a fruit...By the 18th century the English were using them to make sweet pies and tarts."

Well, in spite of my rhubarb-blindness, thanks to my eagle-eyed roomie, I bring you, Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie.

Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie
From MSN Lifestyle

Makes 1 nine-inch pie (about 8 servings).
Working time: 20 minutes
Total time: 1 hour, 15 minutes

• 2 disks Grandma's Pie Dough (1/2 recipe)
• 1 1/3 pounds rhubarb, cut into 1-inch pieces
• 1/3 pound strawberries, hulled and halved
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
  

Tip: If you can't find fresh, use frozen rhubarb from the grocer's freezer section.

Directions:

• Heat the oven to 375°F.
• Roll out one disk of dough on a lightly floured surface to 1/8-inch thickness, and transfer to a 9-inch pie pan.
• Set aside and keep chilled.
• Roll the remaining dough to 1/8-inch thickness and cut slits or use a miniature star cutter to create vents.
• Combine the rhubarb, strawberries, sugar, and flour in a large bowl, and transfer to the prepared pie pan; drape the rolled-out dough over the pie.
• Trim the edges of both crusts, leaving a 1/2-inch overhand.
• Fold the dough under, lightly pinching to seal the top and bottom crusts.
• Crimp around the rim and chill for 10 minutes.
• Bake on the center shelf of the oven until golden brown (45 to 55 minutes).
• Cool on wire rack.

About this recipe: I thought the apple pie was easy, but this pie was even easier--only 4 ingredients, not including the crust. Just chop your rhubarb, hull and halve your strawberries, and toss them in the sugar and flour and you have your filling. Pour it into your crust and top it with another layer and it's ready for the oven.

I wasn't as careful to crimp and seal the edges of this pie as I was with the apple so a lot of the pie juice bubbled out and I was worried it wouldn't be as moist as it should be inside. I baked my pie on the lower end at 45 minutes.

The result: A sweet and tart and yummy addition to your pie arsenal. The only thing I didn't like was the look of the filling. The red from the strawberry and rhubarb makes the sugar/flour mixture into this cotton candy pink syrup which I thought looked pretty gross. In fact, based on that, I thought it wouldn't taste any good, but it really did. The strawberries were soft and sweet and the rhubarb was tart and held together a bit more but was still tender.

And the crust! I finally get to weigh in on how the crust turned out--I love it! Will I start making my own crust instead of buying it, yes I will*.

*Provided I've planned ahead and have the time to do it, otherwise I'll still buy crust.