Strawberry Rhubarb Dump Cake

I love rhubarb. I want straight up rhubarb desserts. For me, there's no need to mix other stuff in to disguise the tartness, that's what makes it good! Well my husband and children would disagree. Sometime I wonder if these kids even belong to me! How can anyone not appreciate this wonderful unique vegetable? As much as it pained me to do it, I tried something new. Turned out it's crazy delicious! I received a recipe for rhubarb dump cake from my dad. He tried it and said that it was too sweet for him so I started experimenting and tweaking the recipe. Thankfully I have my own rhubarb plant that is gigantic, so I have lots to work with.

If you don't know, rhubarb is a stalky vegetable with large leaves. You cannot eat the leaves! You can find it growing wild outdoors, in the grocery store(fresh or frozen) or if you're lucky like me, you can have a thriving plant in your own yard. There are different varieties. Mostly you'll see the bright red stalks but my plant has green stalks with a little red on the bottom. I think they taste the same.

 photo credit: DSC09719 via photopin (license)

Recipe

1 can strawberry pie filling
4-6 cups cut up rhubarb(fresh or frozen)

1 box yellow cake mix

1 stick butter melted

little lemon juice, optional

This is a dump cake so you literally "dump" it all together. First combine the pie filling, rhubarb and a little lemon juice if you have it. I think the lemon juice gives it a little something, but if you don't have any it's fine without. I say 4-6 cups rhubarb because it depends on personal taste. I love the tartness of rhubarb so I put the whole 6 cups and even leave out a little of the strawberry jelly of the pie filling. 

The rhubarb and pie filling goes into the bottom of a glass baking dish. Now sprinkle the cake mix evenly on top of the fruit mixture. Yes, just the powdery cake mix. I find if I use the whole box it's too sweet for my taste. I usually sprinkle 2/3 of the powder. Now just evenly pour the melted butter all over the top. 

Bake in 350 oven for 45 mins to an hour. The top will start to get brown and the filling will be bubbly. Let it cool down because this is HOT! Serve with vanilla ice cream and try not to eat it all at once. 

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Picnic Basket Tutorial

Upcycle those old Easter baskets into fun picnic baskets for summer!

It's almost Easter and you can't walk into a thrift store without tripping over some baskets. My daughter has a little quilt that she insists is for picnics, obviously she needs a picnic basket for a picnic, duh! I got this little basket at the thrift store for $.50...awesome! So I remember my mom doing this once a long time ago, simple project that looks super fancy when you're done. We're just cutting the lid out of cardboard and covering with fabric, easy right?

Here's what you need:

• basket
• fabric
• batting
• cardboard
• ribbon
• lace
• glue gun

My basket, like most, is not exactly the same size/shape on one side as the other. You can just flip the basket upside down and trace around the edge to get the lid exactly the size/shape you need. If your sides are different like mine, be sure to keep track of the top and bottom of lids as well as which lid goes to which side. 

You will need two pieces of cardboard for each side, a top and bottom. I used some thick, heavy duty cardboard for the top piece, so for my bottom piece of cardboard, I used a very thin cardboard(cereal box) If your cardboard is thinner than mine you could just use two of the same.

Now just cover the top of the lid with batting and fabric and attach with hot glue. Then cover the underside of the bottom piece with just fabric. For the bottom piece I used spray adhesive to attach but you could just use the hot glue too. 

You are going to use a piece of fabric in the center to connect the two sides together. Measure the center of basket between the two handles to figure out how long to make it, I folded mine over, so there would be no rough edges.

Glue the fabric piece to the bottom pieces of cardboard. You should place the cardboard on the basket before so you can line it up and position correctly. Now attach the lace and the ribbon. To finish, you glue the tops with the batting onto the bottom pieces.

Now just position on top of basket and tie ribbons to secure. You might also want to add a fabric lining to the inside of the basket!

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