Persimmon Bread

I grew up eating persimmons and I loved the taste of that fruit. When I was growing up we mostly had heart shape pointy kind that had to be completely soft and ripe to be eaten. For the longest time I have been looking for English word that describes the feeling when your mouth dries up and "fills with sand" if you take a bite of unripened persimmon. I now know that it is called astringent and not tart. My husband knew the word and did not know I was looking for it. High level of tannins in unripened fruit is causing denaturation of proteins in salivary glands, thus drying and binding up your mouth. If you never experienced that take a bite of heart shape persimmon that is not soft or just bite into banana peel or unripened banana. Awful!

Still I have fond memories of my child hood, when my mom would get a dozen or so persimmons and we would lay them out on the window sill to ripen. I would be turning them around daily, to get them to ripen evenly. It was my ritual to check on my precious persimmons hoping that one is ready to be devoured. They never had a uniform level of ripens. The top near the stem would still be not quite ready, as the bottom would get soggy or even soupy. Then my mom got a different kind of persimmon that was flat and sweet and not at all astringent. That kind has quickly became my favorite, since now, I did not have to wait and bite into a firm fruit, even crunch on it.... I still go weak at the site of persimmon, so when we got our house that was one of the first trees to be adopted by our backyard, right next to feijoa. The first few years there was barely any fruit, less then a dozen in 2 years and then tree grew brunches but remained as skinny as a model on a catwalk. We did not mind the wait. I live in a very well situated neighbourhood, with several oriental stores that always have persimmons on sale in season. Then our tree acclimated and made us proud of the harvest, as if we bore the fruit ourselves. About 4 years ago, as the sometimes windy California winter was approaching, the tree has lost all of it's leafs but was covered with large orange persimmons. Well, we were not fast enough to pick them, but rather preoccupied with chasing the birds that were totally enamored by my beautiful fruits.

The persimmons were very large and heavy, dotting naked branches in an orange salute to winter harvest. My supermodel skinny tree, just could not handle the wind gusts of 30 mph, so the poor thing toppled over breaking right at the ground level..... Needless to say I was devastated.... My garden baby laid fallen across the lawn.



See how skinny is the trunk?

We picked the fruit, cut the branches down, and I ran to the nursery and picked up some Grafting wax. We applied the wax to the wound and lifted up the tree. Bandaged the wound with duck tape and tied the tree to several support posts. At that point all we had to do is wait. So we did. The spring had finally come with new little green buds on the  branches! Yippee! The tree is growing year after year but still is skinny. It's OK! As long as every November there are lots of  orange persimmons on it, I'm comfortable with anorexic trunk of the tree. The birds certainly don't mind that, nor do they mind  the plastic owl we put in the branches to scare them away.

If there are a lot of fruit I share and if the fruit is too soft and looses it's crunch I puree it and add to Persimmon Bread. I heard  that such a thing exists from my Filipino co-workers. Naturally, if you can make Banana nut bread or one out of Zucchini, why not Persimmon. I could not wait for the recipe, so I had to make one up. If there are a lot of ripe persimmons I freeze them in pureed form in Ziploc bags measuring one cup per bag and use them later in the year.

Here is recipe for bread I came up with.

We all occasionally have a container of yogurt that hid behind something else in the fridge, or you underestimated the amount of sour cream or buttermilk you could consume before it expired last week. It does not look bad, and smells OK, but in the trash it goes. No need for that! You can bake it into a lot of thinks like coffee cakes and breads. That does not mean that you do not use fresh products if you have them. Only if dairy is close to expiration and you do not feel comfortable using it straight - it will work in baking. Notice, I'm talking about processed dairy, that is already sour by nature, and that acidity is what is being utilized by the baking process since it reacts with baking soda producing the bubbles and allowing our batter to rise.
6 eggs, 

I did not add raisins to this one(made my husband pout)

2 cup sugar,

1 cup of yogurt or sour cream or butter milk of mix of all,

1 tsp vanilla extract,

1 tsp Cinnamon(or less if you are not a fan of this spice),

pinch of nutmeg and cloves(optional),

3/4-1 cup of oil,

1 cup of pureed ripe persimmon,

3/4 tsp of baking soda,

3/4 tsp baking powder,

2,5 - 3 cups of flour

1 cup of walnuts pieces

1c of raisins (optional)

The reason the oil and flour is not exact is related to the consistency of yogurt/sour cream mixture. Start with less and adjust the batter as needed. I almost never measure most of the stuff I cook but rather do it by look and feel, consistency and texture of the batter or the product, and started measuring just recently so I can share it with everyone. This amount of batter is going to make about 3 small loafs. I made a loaf and a bunt type cake with this amount.

After you turned on the oven to 350°F, start by whipping eggs then gradually add remaining ingredients. Walnuts and raisins last. Oil the pans or I use nonstick spray. Split the batter in to containers and bake for approximately 40-50 min. Check your bread at 30 min interval, then verify if done by inserting a toothpick into the highest part of the bread. One of these was done before the other, because of the difference in size of the pans.

One other thing I did was Persimmon Jam. Let's face it over ripen persimmon is already like jam all that is needed to be done is the last step. Here is what I did. I pureed the over ripened fruits, processed it in food processor, then I measured amount of the puree in cups and added the same amount of sugar. I had about 3 cups of puree and added 3 cups of sugar. I mixed it in the pot over medium heat. until it dissolved. Once it came up to a boil I turned down the heat and cooked for about 5 more min. That's it! Easy and absolutely delicious, like honey but with an amazing flavor.

Tri Tip - the perfect cut of meat

Perhaps, Tri tip is my favorite cut of beef. It always comes out perfect. I grill it and broil it because my family absolutely loves Tri Tip roast. It is always welcomed and always purchased if on sale. Summers are usually when we consume a lot of it but one does not have to wait till simmer, because  it comes out just as good broiled in the oven.  It does really well when company is over.

  There are a lot of different recipes on the web and methods of cooking it. I always recommend people to try this superior piece of meat. Imagine my surprise when my New York family could not find it in the supermarket. They went to the butcher and he had no idea what they were talking about. I could not believe it. It is sold in our local Costco raw as well as cooked and packaged by one of their vendors. I was determined to find it myself and went to butchers in NY and their local Costco but - nothing.... only cooked and packaged tri tip there. What a shame! Apparently it has not reached NY.

Tri Tip is triangular shape muscle cut from the bottom of the sirloin primal cut. There are only two of those per cow. Honestly, it is a perfect cut of beef: It has the right amount of marbling, very tender, flavorful and not very expensive. During the summer, sale price for untrimmed tri tip roasts is as cheap as $ 2.79 per pound. Trust me, it is totally worth it! It is sold in California trimmed or untrimmed - with thick layer of fat on most of it. Even though supermarket will advertise it as trimmed,on one side of it there will be a layer of fat about 1/4 inch thick. Some people grill that kind  of the roast fat side down covered for about an hour allowing the fat to remain on the frill as the piece of meat is removed to the plate. I trim all of the fat before I grill it.  This is my absolutely favorite, very simple and delish recipe and it is not mine.

I got it right off the bottle of  Grill Mates® Montreal Steak Seasoning 

Savory MarinadeMIX 1/4 cup olive oil, 2 tablespoons soy sauce and 2 teaspoons Seasoning.
ADD 1 pound steak; marinate 30 minutes.
GRILL.

Few tips I want to share. I sometimes marinate it for much longer and olive oil tends to solidify at lower temperature, so try to emulsify the marinade as much as you can. Also since it is a roast and not a steak, it is much thicker and will need more seasoning then just what the recipe calls for. I usually either add more to the marinade or to the roast once it is on the grill. The slushy remnant of the marinade can be gently dabbed onto the roast as it cooks, or just sprinkle some more fresh seasoning. Once it is done in about 30-40 min, depending on the size of the cut allow it to rest covered on the plate. Then slice up to a smaller size cuts starting at the tip, that will give you different size medallions perfectly crusted with seasoning. Even is it is cooked little too long and is well done(i may have accidental done it once or twice), the meat remains tender and juicy. Mmmmmm......I love and use it so much that I buy "industrial size" bottles at Costco and use it up over the summer.

Buckwheat

Baked Mini Pumpkins Stuffed with Buckwheat

If you ask me what I consider a very Russian food, you may be surprised to hear that it its not caviar.

Sure, the potatoes are popular, so is cabbage, however, I would say that kasha rules.  In the US you may have heard that word, since here buckwheat is often referred to as "kasha". Incidentally, in Russia all of the grain and cereals that are cooked called 'kasha": that referrers to cooked barley, rice, buckwheat, millet, oat and etc. I know, that technically they are not even all cereals. Even new arrival like South American quinoa is still called kasha, just specified by what kind of grain has been cooked. In fact, Italian risotto, would qualify as rice kasha. If you enjoy porridge every now and then - you are eating oatmeal kasha.

 

Every Russian kid grows up eating kasha for breakfast and every kids knows a story about a solider that cooked kasha from an ax. In this Russian Cartoon the story is retold. This is tale of a solder that is returning home from the war and comes across a stingy farmer's wife, that does not want to extend hospitality to a hero nor share one meal. Few hundred years ago certain number of peasant Russian men were drafted into the tzar's army for a stretch of 20 years or so. After their service was over they made their way home, usually on foot, likely to spend the night in a nearest village. Hospitality of Russian people is well known, so any solder returning home was a largely counting on it. In this cartoon he asks for something to eat and a place to spend the night, however the woman is not willing to provide for nothing more than haystack in the stable. Clever warrior offers to cook kasha from an ax. Intrigued, she agrees. Ax goes in the pot with water and is boiling away. The soldier is very satisfied with the results but the ax just needs some salt. Stingy woman can't wait to try some ax kasha, so she gives him some salt. When solder tells here that it would be perfect if only there was a spoonful of butter. So he gets the butter from the woman, then it would be perfect is only he gets some grain. The greedy hostess is so mesmerised that she is willing to provide that, too. Now, it needs little more time for cooking and they have a kasha out of ax. "But what about the ax?", asks the woman. "Well, the ax is not quiet done, you need to cook that longer and your husband will finish it tomorrow", replies the solder. That is how the clever solder gets to eat.

....But I digressed....

The Buckwheat comes in groats and sometimes milled in to flour. Groats is what referred to in the States as kasha. Groats can be found in bulk at supermarkets like Whole foods, and in regular supermarket. Buckwheat is a very popular grain in Russia. It is eaten like a morning cereal or a side dish for supper. It has a wonderful rich nutty flavor and is full of iron, zinc and has some antioxidants in it, too. Russia is still the biggest producer of buckwheat and is in frequent competition with China for the title. 

Weather you are buying buckwheat in bulk or in a package, before you cook, it is a good idea to look trough the grains to make sure that there are no loose stones or some other grain made its way in the mix. You are likely to come across some black seeds in the same shape as the rest of the groats. You can pick them out or let them cook, since it is still buckwheat, that did not loose it's outer coat during the processing.     

If you are buying it in bulk you may come across some grain that are pale blown and almost yellow or those that are brown. Traditionally, the grains are toasted to that brown color and if you are getting pale grains you will need to toast your groats till they are brown, so just stick with brown ones. Heating already brown groats is also possible, that releases the aroma of the goats and it will not hurt as long as you don't burn it. However, it is not absolutely necessary.               

Basic recipe is 1c of buckwheat to 2 c of water. Salt to taste and some butter once it is cooked. They cook rather fast - in about 20 min.  I get my buckwheat in Russian stores or my local middle eastern store, that is owned by Assyrians from Iran. They know their customers and carry a certain selection of Russian foods.  

In a regular supermarket you may find buckwheat in Jewish/Kosher foods section of the store in small but expensive brown boxes. That type goes by the name of kasha. I noticed that their product is almost instant kind of buckwheat. The grains are broken into pieces and cook in a matter of few minutes. On this box it says "Fine Granulation" - or simply half milled buckwheat. If you are unsure about buckwheat but want to try it - by all means start with the box, just keep the proportions.

Most people that eat prefer their grains to be nice and loose, like the perfectly cooked basmati rice. I have this photo to demonstrate what it looks like cooked. However, there are few people (I am one of those) that love their grains to be overcooked to the point when they become one homogeneous mass topped of with large load of unsalted butter called "raz-maz-nya" or roughly translated as "mushy". If you do not keep your proportions and add too much water - you will end up with kasha like that. As a child I remember my grandma giving kasha as a hot cereal. Quite simply hot milk was added to the bowl of kasha with butter and spoon full (or more) of sugar. These days I feed this dish to my kids - they love it.

There lot of things you can do with buckwheat and flour from it. Russian crapes called blini can be made with it. Perhaps you heard about the dish brought to US by Eastern European Jews called kasha varnishkes, or buckwheat with bow tie pasta mix. Somehow, my grandma did not make that recipe, so I only learned that it is "traditional Jewish" here, in the States. I would like to share a recipe I made a couple of Thanksgivings ago. 

 I'm particularly proud of this recipe since it was not only delicious and nutritious but also looked good on the plate and was easy to make. For this dish I cooked the buckwheat and mixed it in with vegetables and stuffed it into small pumpkins that where baked.

You will need:

oil for sauteing

1 large diced  onion;

1-2 celery sliced stalks;

1-2 shredded carrots; 

1 package of  sliced mushrooms; several sprigs of thyme or about 1 tsp of dry (mix of both is OK);

about 4 or 5 small pumpkins cut in halves and cleaned; 

2 c of dry buckwheat and some additional fluids for cooking pumpkins such as stock or water.

The rest is simple. Cook buckwheat according to package or few minutes less.Saute onion, celery, carrots and mushrooms, add salt and pepper, then thyme. Mix with cooked buckwheat and fill pumpkins. Place pumpkins in the baking dish and add approximately 1/2 or more cups of liquid like stock or water if you want to keep it vegetarian. Cover the pan with foil to prevent buckwheat from drying out and bake at 350° till pumpkins are fork tender.

This recipe can be cooked with pumpkin not in the form of container for the kasha mix but with pumpkin or butternut squash diced up and cooked with other vegetables and mixed in with cooked buckwheat.

Hope you will try buckwheat.

Pumpkin and other winter squash love Sumac

My local supermarket

I recently discovered that I like these vegetables. I did not dislike them before, I just did not know what to do with them. I asked my vegetarian friend about acorn squash and how to cook it.   

USAGE FARMS PUMPKIN PARK in Morgan Hill

 















Her reply was simple, " just stuff it with rice and bake it!" Well, perhaps today it will be enough for my imagination to run wild in the kitchen but when I was just starting to cook 15 years ago it was not. It came out edible but lacking potential or flavor. So my return to winter squash had waited for about 10 years or so, until my poking around with pumpkins and spaghetti squash. I love pumpkins and do not believe that they are limited to pie filling. There is so much more you can do!
 I noticed that a lot of pumpkin recipes may be substituted with any other winter squash. Some squash are sweeter then others and that sweetness does need to be taken into consideration.  Some pumpkins are sweet enough to be used in place of sweet potato or yams.
Naturally, I looked on the net and read lots of things about the pumpkin and other squash looked for various recipes. That is what gives me inspiration to try different spice combinations and cooking methods. In my experiments I concluded that sumac is perfect for winter squash. I love sumac! Sumac and Pumpkin is match made in heaven.

Roasted Pumpkin with Sumac
This would probably be the simplest recipe you can try. Butter generously the roasting pan and in it place cut up to about 1,5 inch chunks pumpkin pieces. Top with brown sugar and Sumac. Add some butter sliced up thinly over the chunks. Roasting pan can be covered with foil for half the cooking time and uncovered at the end. The foil keeps the moisture and cooks the pumpkin through. It is ready when the knife penetrates the cooked vegetable easily.
My other simple dish with sumac calls for slicing a pumpkin or a winter squash or your choice.



Pumpkin (or butternut squash) Gratin
In a well buttered square baking dish layer sliced pumpkin, overlapping slices like roof tiles. Combine and mix well 1 egg and 1 cup of milk (cream or half and half can be used, too). Over layered out pumpkin slices add salt and pepper and about 1 tsp each of sumac and brown sugar evenly. Bake covered at 350F till knife test indicates readiness. Then top off with your favorite grated cheese and bake 5 min more or until cheese melts. I love the grated Mexican cheese mix and use it all the time. This dish was no exception. Instead of sumac and sugar , thyme and garlic powder can be used, and cinnamon can also be experimented with.
 

Rice with Pumpkin #1

 Another way of using pumpkin or squash is as one of ingredients in larger dish. Here I got several examples of rice dishes with pumpkin. In the first picture is 1 onion and 1 garlic clove chopped and sauteed in oil with chopped pumpkin pieces added to the saute pan next. 1/2 tsp turmeric, and and 1 cup of rice. Add stock or water to the vegetable and rice in proportions according to instructions on the rice container it came in. This can be made into risotto if arborio rice is used.  Optional items are 1/2 c each of roasted pepitas(pumpkin seeds) and raisins as I have here. 1 tsp of Sumac is also added here at the end. Turmeric gives this dish a really yellow color. Few strands of saffron can be dissolved in water and added instead. Sumac again is used here, it really adds a lot of kick with its tart flavor. These rice recipes can be used as stuffing for turkey or other fowl as I did no the next recipe one Thanksgiving.
  A little more ingredients went in to this recipe.


Rice with Pumpkin #2

 Rice with Pumpkin #2
1 chopped onion
2 shredded carrots
1-2 sliced celery ribs
1 small container of mushrooms sliced
1 small-medium pumpkin cut up
1-2 garlic cloves chopped
1/2 -1 cup goji berries
1/2 -1cup sliced or chopped almonds
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp allspice
1tsp sumac
salt and pepper
1/2 c almonds (optional)
Saute mirepoix, garlic and mushrooms add pumpkin, season. All spices but sumac added then together with rice. Saute together for a couple of minutes and add liquid per rice container direction. Stock can be used.
Sumac added in the last few minutes of cooking.

Rice with Pumpkin and sausage
Really similar to the recipe #2 but instead of vegetables there is chicken sausage. Only onion and much more garlic is used here and more cumin added.

Really variations on the same theme.

Last dish I made just this week. This time I used butternut squash and spice for fish. Really,  it worked out great. You maybe familiar with it, I used on salmon all the time. It is brainless time saver, that always comes out delicious.  I used Salmon Rub with Love. On the container it lists ingredients: thyme, black pepper, kosher salt, brown sugar and paprika.

Roasted Butternut Squash and Onion

1/2 sliced and pealed butternut squash

1/2 large onion

1 tbl sp rub

2 tbl sp  butter.

Slice and arrange on the buttered dish alternating onion and squash. Sprinkle rub mix over the vegetables, add chunks of butter over it. Cover and bake. May remove foil cover in last 5 min. I checked with knife for readiness

Probably my favorite recipe with pumpkin I made one of the Thanksgivings that I hosted. I shall write about in a separate post.
Enjoy!

Feijoa

Pineapple Guava and Guavasteen are commonly used names for the fruit that I prefer calling Feijoa - it's other name. According to Wikipedia The German botanist Otto Karl Berg named Feijoa after João da Silva Feijó, a Portuguese botanist born in the colony of Brazil. What ever the story is - the fruit is delicious and loaded with vitamin C and Folate.

It grows well in warm climates, so California is perfect for it. My husband was well familiar with it when he was growing up in Soviet Russia. Imagine his surprise when he found the fruit unclaimed and in abundance near his apartment complex. You see, in California Feijoa is often used as a decorative evergreen shrub. It's trimmed and shaped as other hedges but not given same consideration as a peach or almond tree might.

Why not hedges?... it's evergreen and flowers lovely

When we bought our house it was still being built, so the back yard was naked and empty. In fact, you could not step outside in the backyard during California winter, since it rains here only during the winter, the mud could claim your shoes. We planned and developed our yard by ourselves and the two feijoa bushes were the first plants to call our backyard their new and final residence.
Over the years the two bushes have grown quite a bit and now we realised we should have planted them further apart.

Our feijoa flowers in the spring and produces abundant fruits around Thanksgiving.
There is so much, my family can't eat it all and most of it is given away.

When feijoa is firm it is tart but as it softens it becomes sweet. The green fruit is edible whole, although some people do not like the outer part since it is really sour even in the ripe fruit. Do not tell it to my girlfriend who eats them barely washing. Some, me including, prefer cutting it length wise in half then scooping the sweet part out with the tea spoon.

After lots of the fruit has been given away I have made some preserves. One of the methods is actually my mother-in-law's since that is how she preserved the November harvest for consumption during several winter months. There it was something of a medicine, an "airborne" if you will.

Recipe #1

This method is plain and simple: equal parts of sugar (or slightly more) to fruit in a food processor, pulsed to a desired coarseness. The fruits are washes and the ends cut. In the refrigerator it can stay for months and much longer in the freezer. It is a delicious desert by itself, with whip cream or spooned over vanilla ice cream. Or friends are crazy over it and actually eat it frozen like a sorbet. I do want to notice that it does have a peculiar texture. The words that come to mind to best describe it is chalky, granny or sandy. If you know how dried figs taste and feel in your mouth, you'll find the texture familiar. By no means it takes away from  its taste.

However, it may be noticeable if used it other ways as I will describe in a minute.

Recipe #2

The second way preserving it is just a step away from the first. Simply cook the first recipe for about 5 min on slow fire after bringing it to a boil. 

Recipe #3

 The third method is cooking it in several steps. After washing and cutting of the ends cut fruit in halves, quarters or slice them as cucumbers in circles. Here I was lazy and left the green skin on. You could also take time and scoop out the soft part from halves and leave the skin behind. I think, however that the skin has all of the aroma of feijoa. Feijoa has a fantastic aroma.  In this method the fruit to sugar is in either equal or slightly less parts. 1,2-1,5 parts sugar to each part fruit by weight. After cooking for about 15 min allow to cool overnight then repeat cooking. Then allow to cool again for 8 hrs or overnight. Each time cooking process will make the preserve darker color, until I turns deep brown.
Again, I love it over the vanilla ice cream.

However.... there is only so much
sweet preserve you can eat.

So I try to come up with recipes that will utilize what I have in the pantry.

  

Lately, my favorite thing is frozen puff pastry. I love it and always have in my freezer. It only takes 20-30 min to defrost and then in another 20 you have yummy desert.  Here is what I do. After defrosting I use rolling pin and roll it in the shape of my silicon pad( rolling it right on it but slightly flour dusted) then I poke holes in the dough with a fork and with it create ledge in the dough by poking holes in a line all around approximately half an inch away from the edge. In the middle of the polka-dotted rolled out dough I put my preserve from recipe #3.

This makes a great and easy desert for guests that were not expected but always welcomed. 

I absolutely love puff pastry.

Here are some other things that I've done in the past.

I had some ripe pears. These could be sliced and slightly cooked with sugar in a non stick frying pan, The same can be done with apples.  Then cooked fruit placed in the middle of rolled out dough and baked.

Home made apricot preserve was used here, too.

Then I decided to try something new and came up with idea for bread out of recipe #1.

4 eggs
1 c sugar
1 c  of the preserve recipe #1
1,5 t sp baking soda
1/2 t sp baking powder
1 t sp cinnamon
1/2 t sp nutmeg
1/4 t sp ground cloves
1/3 c oil
2,5 c flour(approximately may be slightly more)
1c raisins (optional, except in my house my husband will whine if there are not there)
Whip the eggs and sugar together then add the rest of the ingredients. Pour into the oiled pan and bake at 350F till the toothpick comes out clean. The length of baking will depend on the volume of pan you choose. The bread pan that will split the batter in two will take 20-30 min and the large one like me will  take up to 50 min or more.

I do have to warn that the texture or the preserve does come through and is noticeable. Still it was delish.

This year's harvest is done and processed and we are waiting til next year....