Fresh Ontario Strawberry and Rhubarb Crumble (heavy on the fruit, low on the sugar and carbs)

We were at the Farmer's Market in St. Lawrence Market yesterday and couldn't help ourselves when we saw all the wonderful, fresh fruits and vegetables. We are trying to be good since we got back from holiday, detox a bit, get some new habits laid and old ones done away with but we decided that we would really like a fresh fruit crumble. The strawberries were so deeply red and smelled intoxicating, and tasted even better! The rhubarb was a Strawberry Rhubarb variety apparently. 

I used about half of both the fruits, leaving the strawberries whole but hulled and the rhubarb cut into fairly large chunks. I filled a dish almost full with the fruit so that it made up the majority of the crumble and sprinkled a little brown sugar over it. 

If you aren't watching how much sugar you eat then I would say you might need several spoons in here because despite the fact that the strawberries are really sweet, the rhubarb is very tart! I only sprinkled a bit on and it was too tart.

I also went really light on the topping too. There was a packet of Maple Cinnamon Porridge Oats in the cupboard which I used, if you have one of those porridge sachets they are great to use, we normally have the plain ones. Normal oats do well too. I melted a little butter (couple tbsps) which I know you shouldn't do but I didn't want to wait for any to get to room temperature, you should if you can. I also added a tiny bit of flour, which we are really trying to avoid but there was no alternative, I added until it was a crumbly texture. If you had ground almonds of whole wheat flour or other grain flour they could be options. You'll be able to find a regular topping recipe online or in lots of books should you wish, this was mainly about making it better for us.

Because I went so light on the topping, half way through cooking I added a handful of crushed walnuts and a couple of spoons of flax seed to help out. The oven was medium to low and I just kept an eye on it till I could smell it and the top was brown.

I let the crumble sit for a while to cool before we ate it. As much as I would have loved to add vanilla ice cream or whipped cream or anything else, we didn't. I had gone so light on the sugar that we were forced to sprinkle a tiny bit more in our bowls but it tasted great after that.