New Subject!

 I've decided to start a new subject matter. It will be about my tragedies in cooking, and will include the recipes I was attempting to create. I figured it is my Toxic Housewife duty to educate anyone interested enough in reading a cooking post about what NOT to do to re-create a recipe. Because, Lord knows, I won't be able to tell you how to do it RIGHT. Any posts on this subject will be tagged 'Mystery Science Theater 3000'.

Our first post: Rhubarb Pie, or – more accurately – Rhubarb Goop.

Ingredients:

4 cups unpeeled, diced young rhubarb stalks that you stole from a neighbor's garden

¼ cup all-purpose flour

1 ¼ to 2 cups of sugar (remember, rhubarb is tart; however, I used almost the full 2 cups of sugar, and I actually thought it was too sweet. Plus, I could actually see my thighs growing with every bite)

1 tablespoon butter.

Mix all ingredients, and pour into a pie shell. Top with a lattice crust. (Don't be silly; of course I didn't use a homemade crust. However, may I recommend not using the crusts of unknown origin that you found in the back of your freezer and that are slightly freezer-burned?)

Bake at 450 for 10 minutes, then reduce heat to 350 and bake 35-40 minutes longer.

Voila! And what you have is actually a highly tasty, though very liquidy, mess. I've heard of adding a few teaspoons of tapioca or cornstarch to the mix first if you're using juicy fruits. I preferred just to pour out the extra hot juice before anyone saw the baked pie.

Bee and I were both pleasantly surprised at how well the pie turned out. Bee was, in fact, thrilled just to have his wife baking 'a whole pie from scratch'; what he doesn't know won't kill him. Ummm. . . actually, when it's ME who's doing the cooking, I can't swear to that.