Sweet life in Provence III & a Rhubarb & Cherries crumble

What I do really like here in Provence is that people take the time for living . So , you don't need to wait for the Weekend to be invited somewhere or to invite someone .It was just a thursday like any other and our neighbours invited us for lunch : a magnificent steak was cooking on the barbeque when we arrived ,about 4lb of meat for three .

It was a wonderful day and the view from their terrace looking towards the Luberon  and onto the village is great.

So we had tomatoes  and peppers with the steak , then came cheese. Time flewed sweetly ,eating & chatting .

I brought the dessert , a simple crumble with rhubarb and cherries . I made it very light , less butter and a small amount of sugar . Using rice and spelt flour instead of wheat ( I don't know why but wheat flour makes crumble rather heavy to digest for me ) and I used a special pepper to give a spicy touch .

Rhubarb & Cherries Crumble

For 6 servings

100 gr of rhubarb

350 gr of cherries

100 gr of spelt flour

50 gr of rice flour

a pinch of salt

75 gr of cane sugar

70 gr of butter diced

a pinch of black pepper freshly grounded ( I used a wild pepper from Madagascar called Voatsiperifery )

20 gr of flaked almonds

Preheat the oven at 180° or 375 F , butter a 20/22 cm baking dish ,or six single ones as I did and set aside. Wash the rhubarb and the cherries ,trim the top and the ends of the rhubarb and cut diagonally into 2 cm lenghts. Remove the stems and kernels from cherries . Sprinkle 1and 1/2  teaspoon of sugar on the dish ( or 1/4 on each if making individual portions) , spread the fruits evenly .

To make the crumble topping put the flours ,the salt and the butter in a bowl , rub the butter till the mixture seems like breadcrunch , stir in sugar , pepper and almonds . Sprinkle the crumble over the rhubarb and cherries , bake for about 25/30 minutes until the topping is golden brown .

You can eat it warm but I like it even cold . 

Cherries & Wine Spritzer

Cherries in Provence are simply wonderful ! Now we have the first ones , called " Burlat" : someone offered me a bag of them and as cherries don't last more then two or three days I thought to make some jam . So I rattled them off and put in a jar with sugar, a vanilla bean and left overnight : in this way the sugar makes a sort of "cold cooking" ,then I cook the syrup till almost caramelized and at the point I add the friuts and finish to cook . The jam in this way keeps all the flavour and taste of fresh fruits ,and the color also. Well.....while the cherries where waiting in the jar my partner began to taste them and he found that they were very very good .Then he put some cherries and syrup in a glass , added some rosé wine and ice cubes .....can you imagine the end? We finished half the cherries in one day . Simply addicting . It's the  drink  for June's parties !!