Well this was her about 5 months ago when Mark & I first got her. Needless to say she is MUCH bigger now, and figuring out that with her new size there is much to be discovered.
Mark has been away for work for the last 3 weeks, so with just me home alone I haven't been spending much time in the kitchen because he isn't home to eat the creations. He came home the other day to spend the night, so I thought what better a time than to use up the rest of my frozen rhubarb from my grandma's garden. I decided to make some strawberry rhubarb crumble bars from a recipe I kinda adapted from others and created as I went.
Fresh from the oven!
Strawberry Rhubarb Oat Crumble Squares
Base:
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cups oats (I used Quaker quick oats)
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup applesauce
1/4 cup maple syrup
2 Tbsp milk
Filling:
1 cup strawberries diced
1 cup rhubarb stalks diced
3 Tbsp sugar
2 Tbsp water
Preheat oven to 350F and grease an 8x8 baking pan. Heat the strawberries, rhubarb, and sugar with water in a pot until they begin to boil. Once they begin to boil, simmer until thick about 8-10 minutes. Once you remove from the heat, allow this mixture to cool for about 10 minutes to it has time to really set and thicken up.
Mix all the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl and whisk. In a seperate small bowl, mix all the wet ingredients and stir until smooth. Add this wet mixture to the large bowl containing the dry mixture. Stir this together until just combined. This mixture should be fairly thick, but crumbly. Save about 3/4 cup of this mixture to crumble over the top. Press the rest of this into the greased baking pan and press down firmly. Pour the thickened rhubarb strawberry mixture overtop of this base and spread out evenly. Then sprinkle the remaining oat mix evenly over the top of this filling layer. Bake for about 30 minutes or until golden.
However, once it was cooling time for my lovely little bars.... I cut them each into their own respective size after cooling in the pan, and laid them out on the counter on top of this cutting board. I proceeded to carry on doing things around the house while these were out to cool....
And from 16 squares...I came back to this many remaining. Now Mark being gone for a few weeks
was definately excited for treats....but not THAT excited.
Turned around to find the culprit...
Yes, she has discovered with her new size that jumping up to the edge of the counter and using her paws to swipe some human treats is a fun time.
At least Mark & I still got to eat the remaining 4 squares, and they were delicious!! And from the sounds Aston's tummy made for 2 days and the fact that she didn't touch a bite of kibble for 2 days after the fact, I'd say she learnt the hard way to keep her grimy little paws off the counter.
