Rote Grutze!

Adapted from this recipe for the fruit, and this recipe for the vanillesauce.

Since we didn't actually get to eat any in Germany, and we forgot the store-bought, prepackaged portions at Ellen's flat when we left, I decided to make some myself.

I used a combination of sour cherries, red raspberries, sliced strawberries, and for an American twist, a bag of frozen cranberries. And I added about two cups of sliced rhubarb from the back yard. I used a couple tablespoons more sugar because of the cranberries and rhubarb.

I also added a scraped fragment of a vanilla bean to the milk, in addition to the extract at the end, because I love seeing the little black specks in vanilla sauce. Tells me it's really vanilla.

Ya know, this really is freaking good. And simple to make. Just watch out for the splatter from the fruit when it comes to a boil. I think I need to dunk my white bathrobe in 'Spray & Wash' before I throw it in the washing machine. Of course a white garment is the ideal garb for cooking anything red, right??