Cobbled together

I'm often looking for ways to get more fruits and vegetables into our diet.  Like tonight, when I added broccoli to my girls' "shell noodles" (Annie's mac & cheese).  I didn't know that Gillian could identify "bwoccolies," much less say the word pretty much correctly.  When we had Dorie's Mixed Berry Cobbler a few weeks ago, I was a bit surprised by how well it went over with everyone.  We made it a couple times, with a variety of berries, and had no trouble eating enough fruit that week.  =)

So I was happy to see that this week's recipe was for Cherry Rhubarb Cobbler.  However, I knew right away that I'd be making some changes, since I don't like cherries.  And while I'd like to try rhubarb, I haven't seen it around here lately.  So when I went shopping this week, I was on the lookout for other tart, red fruits to substitute.  A lot of fruit has been kind of expensive this season--the very dry spring and early summer haven't been good for the local stuff.  But I managed to find some nice-looking pluots on sale.  The raspberries also looked pretty good, so a pint of them jumped into the cart, too.  And I remembered to pick up some whole wheat flour for the topping (what I had in the pantry was rather old).

I left the skins on the pluots, since it's a pain to peel them.  Plus, the tartness of the skin balances out the sweetness of the flesh, and it gave the cooked filling a lovely red color.  I reduced the sugar just a bit, to 1/4 cup, since I didn't think my fruit was quite as tart as rhubarb would be, but left the amount of ginger at 1 teaspooon.  I didn't make any changes to the topping.

The verdict?  I really like the whole wheat in the topping, especially in combination with the brown sugar.  I definitely want to make it again.  I don't know if it was my changes to the fruit, but I should have cut back on the amount of ginger in the filling.  I liked it with the other flavors; it was just too much for my taste.  However, there was a simple solution in my freezer - some homemade vanilla ice cream tamed the spice of the ginger nicely.  And as usual, I ate my cobbler for breakfast.  The whole wheat offsets the ice cream, right?  =)

This week's selection comes from Amanda of Like Sprinkles on a Cupcake.  Head over to her blog for the recipe, or get yourself a copy of Baking From My Home to Yours!  And don't forget to check out the blogroll at Tuesdays with Dorie for lots of other wonderful cobblers.