Spring reds

I love baking, but have somehow missed out on the spring glory that is Rhubarb. All of my favorite food bloggers have been cooking up decadent pastries, pies and panna cottas (I might be guilty of spending far too much time lusting over this over at Tartelette's blog..) so I thought I'd give it a try. The husband was in the field all week for training eating crappy Army food (mmm MREs) and, as this is one of his favorite pies, I thought he deserved it. I've actually never even tasted rhubarb (gasp) so once we slice into my first strawberry rhubarb pie attempt after dinner, I'll let you know what I think.

I didn't know where to begin as far as finding a recipe, so I initially turned to the recipe collection on Williams Sonoma's website. While they rarely disappoint, I couldn't help but think their particular pie recipe looked a bit boring, so I headed over to the Food Network site to see what they had. This was the winner (I mean, who can resist strawberries and rhubarb mixed with cinnamon, lemon zest and all that lovely butter...).
I have a fantastic gluten free pie crust recipe (found in Gluten Free Gourmet Comfort Foods cookbook) that I'm too lazy to type out here. Generally it works like a dream but the humidity must be low or something today because we had an all out fight. Instead of the usual silky dough, I ended up with a pile of crumbles that, in the end, I did manage to force into two crusts. It didn't make for the most gorgeous pie (thankfully you can't see my awesome patch jobs on the bottom crust) but man, that crust is so flaky it's unreal! I also threw some cinnamon and nutmeg into the crust to spice it up a bit.
It smells incredible and the little bit of filling that bubbled over was immediately swiped up with my finger...and it tastes fantastic.

I should mention that we are also having Pioneer Woman's meatloaf for dinner b/c J loves meatloaf and hers is positively decadent. I mean, who else has the balls to wrap her meatloaf entirely in bacon...that woman is my hero.

So before I eat my arm off (the smell coming from my kitchen is having that effect..), I'll leave you with a little project I did last week: I have one of the best neighbors ever living upstairs whose mothering skills I hope to emulate someday. I was making my mom a flower arrangement for Mother's day so I thought I'd make her one too..

Again, I'm too lazy to write out a tutorial on how to make the butterfly but it's pretty simple...I just covered some pages out of an antique french book (the literary gods are going to get me someday for cutting it up, but until then, it makes for great crafting material) with some tissue paper, cut out the butterfly wings, glued them on a little wire body that i made and stuck the little guy into the bouquet.

And with that, I'm off to gorge myself on some seriously amazing food.
And hang out with my awesome husband who I haven't seen in a week...YAY!