Gingery Rhubarb Crumble- vegan and wheat free

 A couple of Sundays ago my husband proudly brought home the first rhubarb of the year from our allotment, so I made this crumble using ground sunflower seeds instead of butter and gour (also called jaggery) instead of sugar. Gour is from either sugar cane or palm "sugar". The one we use most often at home is from sugar cane. Basically, it is what you get if you simply boil the water off sugar cane juice, and as such is superior to refined sugars. It does, however, contain both glucose and sucrose, so can lead to a spike in blood sugar levels, just like refined sugar. The main reason for gour being a healthy choice is that it contains vitamins and minerals: calcium, phosphorous, iron, B vitamins and ascorbic acid (vitamin C); this makes gour a nutritional food, rather than an anti-nutrient, as refined sugar is... oh, and ginger and rhubarb is a match made in heaven, by the way.
Unfortunately I didn't have time to measure out the ingredients properly- Sundays are always rather hectic in our house- so I'm giving some guidelines rather than a proper recipe. I made 6-8 portions with the 8 sticks of rhubarb, and the topping was not thick but more of a crunchy coating/ granola (see picture).
About 8 sticks of fresh rhubarb
About 2 large handfuls of porridge oats (half of them ground up into meal)
Gour for the rhubarb and the topping; you will have to keep testing as you add to see if it's sweet enough
Ground sunflower seeds (about 1/2 cup)
Powdered ginger
1 tab organic cold-pressed sunflower oil
Flaked almonds for sprinkling
A little water to mix

• Slice the rhubarb and place in an ovenproof dish mixed with grated gour
• To make the topping, mix all the dry ingredients together in a bowl then rub in the oil and water
• Scatter the topping over the fruit and sprinkle the flaked almonds on top
• Bake at 200C until top is browned and rhubarb is soft.
• We served it with soya custard but it doesn't really need anything.

Possible Tweaks: Orange is another flavour that goes really well with rhubarb and somehow seems to take away some of the tartness, so you may need less gour. Next time I make this I will add orange slices or grated fresh peel to the fruit layer. If you don't want to use oats, try buckwheat and/or millet (bajri) flour instead.