Ginger Rhubarb Whole Wheat Pie

I scored a huge bunch of rhubarb the other day on my way home from work.
I'm a huge rhubarb fan and I've been meaning to go to a local Farmer's market to get some. Something about the rhubarb in the grocery store, and it's price, keep me from buying it. 
Hey, rhubarb should come from your own garden, or be given to you. 
I was driving home from work the other day, still all dressed up from my day, when I passed a neighbors house with a HUGE pile of rhubarb and leaves sitting at the end of her driveway nearest the street.  It was screaming "Free Rhubarb".... I pulled over.  As I clippity clopped towards the rhubarb in my heels, the neighbor emerged with a smile on her face, so happy to give her rhubarb away. I was pretty happy to be on the receiving end.

One thing about rhubarb, while the "ideal" stalk of rhubarb is nice and ruby red, don't be too picky, even the green ones taste good. As you can see from my picture above, my filling isn't the picture perfect red, but it still tastes great anyway.

This didn't start out being a vegan pie recipe, but I've had one of those sticks of Crisco in my fridge for a while and I wanted it gone!  It's been there since Thanksgiving when I made a Vegan pie for the holiday gathering for my niece, who is a vegan.  Vegan pie crust is pretty much a slam dunk... it involves stuff you already know. If you prefer to use butter, here's my basic pie crust recipe that always works well for me, Easy Pie Crust.

Makes one double crusted pie

Ingredients:

Crust:

1 2/3 cup all purpose white flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 cup Crisco

3 Tbsp cold water 

Filling:

6 cups rhubarb, chopped

2 tbsp candied ginger, chopped small

1 1/2 cups sugar

6 Tbs flour

Make pie crust first, as it's best when it has a chance to chill for 30 minutes, or more.  I use a food processor to mix the two types of flour, a dash of salt and the Crisco vegetable shortening and pulse the mixture until it resembles a coarse meal.  Then, add in about 3 Tbsp of ice cold water and mix until just combined. Wrap in plastic wrap, flatten into discs and chill for 30 minutes.

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.

Chop your rhubarb into 1/2 slices.  If your stalks are super thick, you might want to cut each stalk in half lengthwise first, then into slices for smaller pieces for ease of shoving it into your 'pie hole' later on when eating it.

In a large bowl, add the chopped rhubarb, the sugar, the flour and the candied ginger.  Mix well.  Pretty quick you will see the rhubarb start to release some liquid, which is fine, just give it another stir before adding it to the pie crust.

Roll out the pie crust and line the pan.  I like to use a deeper dish ceramic pie plate, but any 9" will work.

It could be somewhat tender to roll out, I had some breakage with mine, which surprised me. More so than all white flour... must have something to do with less gluten.Oh well, now let's see how I can get by this?  So... I rolled mine between two sheets of plastic wrap and it worked very well! Line the pie plate and fill with the rhubarb filling.

Add the top crust and crimp the edges.  You can also use a fork to seal the edges, that's how you keep all the juice inside the pie!

Preheat oven to 375

Bake at 375 for 1 hour and 15 minutes.  Please use a cookie sheet under the pie pan, it will help keep nasty, sticky spills from making a mess in the bottom of your oven.