strawberry rhubarb compote

It is reaching the end of rhubarb season for another year, so we've been enjoying it while we still can. Earlier in the week I made a batch of chocolate rhubarb cookies (although the end result was a bit of a cake-y cookie). They turned out quite good (alterations: dial back the sugar by at least 1/4 cup and add extra 'barb), and I brought the lot of them into the office for the ladies to enjoy. They went fast.

Two days ago, upon realizing that the remnants of our four pound box of strawberries was going to spoil if we didn't eat them ASAP, we had strawberry rhubarb tart. The compote- which was the topping- was easy, really delicious, and free of refined sugar (which means Brendan will eat it).

Strawberry Rhubarb Compote
roughly 3 cups strawberries, halved, and quartered if necessary to get them into a vaguely uniform size
roughly 4 cups rhubarb, peeled where necessary to remove the "strings", and diced to about 3/4"
honey
zest of half a lemon
lemon juice
1/2 a vanilla bean

Put most of the fruit (keep a handful of strawbs aside for later) and veg (rhubarb is a vegetable!) into a heavy bottomed saucepan. Add just a dash of water, and give a really generous drizzle of honey all over it. Let this sit a couple minutes so the natural juices start to come out. In the mean time, halve the vanilla bean, scrape the seeds out and put them in the pot, and toss the bean in too for good measure and flavor. Add in the zest, and only half the juice from your lemon half. Cook on medium-high heat for about 10 mins, stirring regularly. Taste it- is it too tart? Add more honey. Once the rhubarb and strawberries have started to break down, turn the heat lower and simmer for another few minutes. The mixture should be thickening. If it needs help, mix some of the fruit juice with corn starch or flour. Stir it until very smooth, then add back to the pot. That should do the trick. Once it looks and tastes right, discard the vanilla bean, stir in those extra strawberries for a bit of texture, and let it cool to room temp.

From here you can use pie dough or puff pastry to make a tart (just don't go getting involved in another project and forget your tart and end up with well done edges like I did), put it on yogurt or ice cream (it tastes heavenly with coconut ice cream), or just eat it right out of the pot because it is so darn good.