Made For Each Other: Strawberry Rhubarb

This is a summertime classic, warm and gooey, with sour rhubarb to offset the sweet-but-predictable strawberry. It's a family favorite and definitely one of my pie staples. Plain old strawberry pie verges on saccharine, so you need the rhubarb to kick it up. You know how it is. The best couples usually have a sweet/sour factor going for them - good cop/bad cop, social butterfly/nerd, dreamer/breadwinner, Obama/Biden.

Rhubarb is grown in huge quantities in the Northwest but it's hard to find in Texas. In fact, I bought a bunch at the grocery store here and the checker asked, "what is this? Is it some kind of red celery?" Gasp, no. It is heavenly. For this pie, I like to go fifty-fifty on the rhubarb to berry ratio, and I slice the strawberries only in half, so you get nice fat bites of them.

One caveat: cook and sweeten the rhubarb before filling and baking. It's kind of a tough customer, though nothing a little heat and sugar can't fix.

Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie

One double pie crust
4 cups sliced strawberries
4 cups diced rhubarb - 1 inch pieces
3/4 cup sugar (I like it tart; you could add more)
4 to 5 tablespoons cornstarch
2 tsps lemon juice OR orange zest
Splash of vanilla, if you want

Mix the fruit and add-ins, let stand for 15 minutes, and roll out the crust. Fill, cover with top crust, score for ventilation, and bake at 350 for an hour. As always, don't take it out until the juices are bubbling through the vents. It will smell so, so good -- almost, but not quite, apple-pie good.