On the Virtues of the Humble Persimmon

Have you ever eaten a persimmon? Have you ever heard of a persimmon? Well, before moving back here to the states, my only exposure to the persimmon was reading about them in a Little House on the Prairie book. Well, it wasn't exactly a Little House on the Prairie book, it was on of the next series, about Laura's daughter, Rose, I think they are called Little House in the Ozarks? Maybe? But that's not the point. The point is that I read about them once in a book, as a weird fruit that grows up in the backwoods of mountain america and that is very, very, very nasty until fully ripe.

But upon moving to the states, and marrying a country boy from Oklahoma, I actually tasted a persimmon. Sure enough, they are a weird fruit that grows wild in America and is very, very, very nasty until fully ripe.
Why am I telling you this, you ask?
Well, persimmons grow wild. That means, you can go pick them for free. No cost.
They also, although very, very, very nasty until fully ripe, are also quite good when fully ripe. They kind of taste like a date. And you can bake with them! Free baking fruit!
I'm in. Seriously, three of my favorite words, right there: free. baking. fruit.

So this fall, Morgan and I went to a park nearby where persimmons grow and we picked ourselves a few bushels of persimmons.

So I don't know how big a bushel is, but we did pick a lot of persimmons. Maybe not a bushel. Because I don't know.

But we picked three wal-mart sacks full, and they weighed 20 pounds when we were done! That's a lot. But I don't know how that compares to a bushel.

Morgan climbed up in the trees and shook them to make the ripe persimmons fall.

Only pick up the squishy ones. They need to be really ripe. They should feel kind of like a date. Squishy. Very squishy.

What do you do with persimmons, you ask?
Well, you have to enjoy getting messy to enjoy persimmons. Because, you see, you have to squish them to bake with them. And you squish them through a colander to get the seeds out of the mush.
And come on, guys, you know me. The best way to do that is with your hands, of course!

We squished them all up, and put the mush into bags for baking. I've made a few things with them, but I haven't taken any pictures while I'm at it... so I'm going to have to make them again and take pictures for here. The main idea is that you can use it wherever you would use any other fruit mush. You can use it in place of bananas in banana bread. Or make persimmon butter like you would make apple butter. Or make pudding out of it.
Just experiment and have fun! It's yummy.

Taming a Jalepeno Into Yum.

If you are like me, the word "jalepeno" scares you a little. When I first heard of this recipe, I looked at Morgan with that "you-are-joking-right?" look that I give him sometimes.
Ok, a lot of the time.
I use that look a lot.
He is usually joking. But this time he wasn't.
Seriously, there is something you can do with jalepeno peppers that will make them into little pockets of juicy, creamy, awesome yum.
Not hot.
Cross my heart.

See, all (or the vast majority) of the heat of the pepper is in the seeds and the membrane. Remove that, and you have tame peppers!
So begin this recipe with removing the seeds and membrane of the peppers. You really want to get it all if you aren't a fan of hot. I promise.

I used a grapefruit spoon to scrape all the membrane out, and rinsed it out with warm water. 

Now comes the good part. Take cream cheese. Mix it with small chunks of garlic. For my six jalepenos, I used one block of cream cheese and three cloves of garlic chopped up really small, and a dash of garlic powder.

Now, stuff the cream cheese- garlic mixture into the peppers. You really want to be careful to try to not break the peppers, or while they are cooking all the cream cheese will run out, and then what will have been the point of stuffing them? Hm?

Now, wrap each jalepeno tightly with a strip of bacon, and secure with a toothpick.

Space them out on a cookie sheet, and bake them at 350 F until the bacon looks pretty cooked. Not crispy, just cooked. Then turn on the broiler on high just long enough to crisp the bacon.
Pull out jalepeno packets of goodness.
LET THEM COOL.
No really.
Let them cool.
You really really want to let them cool.
That cheese inside is really, really warm.

Now. Eat them all.
All of them. Nom nom nom.
I recommend a glass of milk. If you didn't get quite all the membrane, it can get a bit spicy up toward the stems. It's not bad. Especially with a glass of milk.

On a side note, just imagine for a moment being my long-suffering husband. Every time I pull something out of the oven, all yummy and ready to eat, when he is all hungry and ready to eat it up... I stop him... and spend a good long while taking pictures of it for my blog.
He is a good sport about it.
But poor him.

He stopped to take a breath between inhaling peppers, so I took a picture while he wasn't paying attention.
Aren't I sneaky.

It didn't take us very long to wipe out the peppers. All gone. I even mopped up all the juice on the plate with a piece of bread.
 It was yummy.

Peach Pie

They were there, sitting at walmart, in all their peachy glory. They looked lovely. They felt soft and juicy. I could just imagine biting into their goodness and eating a peach with juice dribbling down my chin, periodically sprinkling the sweet, juicy fruit with salt. ...

Ok, so I'm weird and eat my fruit with salt. Take it up with my mom. But don't get distracted by the salt, pay attention, stay with me. I'm telling a story.

Anyway, so there I was and there they were and I gave into temptation. I bought four big, plump, juicy, bright peaches. I brought home my bounty.
I eagerly opened the bag and pulled out a peach.
I pulled my salt sprinkler over beside me.
I was nearly drooling, so ready was I for Peachness.
I opened my mouth and took a big, giant bite....
and....
nothing.
Disappointing blandness.
Yucky graininess.
Devastating averageness.
Definitely NOT what I was craving.

I was disappointed.
Disenchanted.
Disconcerted.
Disheartened.
Disgruntled.
Disillusioned.
Dissatisfied.
Not. Happy.

So, I decided to rectify this grave error in the taste of the peaches. I decided to redeem them and make them into a pie. Now, by this point in my blog journey, oh wonderful readers of mine, you should know me well enough to know that I often do not carefully measure my ingredients.
Or use a lot of fancy ingredients.
Or carefully use all the correct equipment.
In fact, usually, my cooking consist of mixing what looks good in the amounts that seem right, and mostly with my fingers. Because mixing with fingers is awesome, lets just admit it.

So, true to form, I did not really measure anything for this peach pie. But I did take pictures! So here you go.... and I'm just sure you can make your own little package of peachy goodness wrapped in buttery crust wrappings. I believe in you.

 

 

Make sure to cut your peaches really thin, so that plenty of juice comes out and mixes with the sugar and spices. 

Maybe about a cup and a half of sugar, depending on how many peaches you have? Enough sugar that every piece of peach has a little glaze on it when you mix it up. Cinnamon and nutmeg are the spices, quite a bit of each. Don't be shy. Add lots of spices. It's good, I promise.

 

I have found my new favorite way to crust pies. It avoids the mess and hassle of a top crust, and I think it looks better than when I try to pinch and prettify a top crust. I always end up with tears and dimples and hollow spots and burnt edges when I try to do a regular pie crust. 

So, this way, you just roll out an extra large bottom crust and put it in the pan with the edges draping over. Then put in the filling, and take those edges and pull them up over the top, wrapping your little pie package up all nice and cute!

 

 

Bake at 400 degrees F, for about 40 minutes. 

 

So, funny story. As I served up my peach pie, Morgan happened to be talking to his dad on the phone. It was 6:30, by which time Morgan's dad is usually home from work, at their house about 40 minutes away. Morgan mentioned what we were eating, and that there was more, and it was too bad his dad wasn't here to eat any, and his dad thought that was too bad as well. After Morgan hung up, I remarked that his dad should have come by on his way home from work. As the last word left my mouth, there was a tapping on the kitchen window behind me. I looked up to see Morgan's dad looking hungrily in the kitchen window! He had stayed late at work and had been on his way home when Morgan called, and had turned around and come by for a piece of the pie. 

He seemed satisfied with the results. 

I must say, this was indeed a good peach pie. I was happy that I got my peach goodness after all!

Pie Crust

Can we talk about pie crust for a minute? Just a moment. Please don't scream, or hyperventilate, or run away. 

It has come to my attention that pie crust is something of a fear among the semi-cooking population of women. Perhaps not quite as badly feared as spiders, but possibly fairly close. 

Listen to me. 

It can smell fear. 

You can't show it that you are afraid. 

You have to show the pie crust who is boss. It's just a little blob of flour and butter. It can't hurt you.

Promise.

You can make a pie crust. You can make a lovely pie crust. You can make a flaky, buttery, light, salty, crispy, delightful pie crust. 

You can make a pie crust that you will want to bake and eat all by itself. 

Not that I may or may not have done that....

Ok, are you with me? Lets make a pie crust, ok? Now, true to my general cooking form, we aren't going to use a whole bunch of fancy ingredients. Those may work for some people, but I am not smart enough to remember them all, so I just stick with the pie crust my grandmother taught me how to make (Hi Mamma!). It's easy, it's really good, and it is totally unhealthy, which all good things, of course, are. 

Take flour. Got the flour? Ok, now take salt. Salt the flour.
Just a dash of salt.
You know.
Some salt.

Now take butter. Add half as much butter as flour. Tip: The butter should be really really cold. Pretty much frozen. I actually use frozen margarine. That way, the butter won't fall apart but will stay in flaky chunks in your crust.

Yes, that means that for every cup of flour you have half a cup of butter.

Cut the butter into the flour until you have little chunks. About pea-sized. Big peas. Now add some very, very cold water. I put pieces of ice in the water I'm going to use. You want this water barely above freezing, because you don't want your frozen little bits of butter to melt.

About half as much water as butter, but play it by ear. You want only enough water so that your dough barely sticks together. It will kind of look like the picture below. Mix it together, tossing it with your fingers. Do not knead it. Do not squish it. Just mix it tossy-like.

 

Now, with lots of flour on the counter, roll out the dough. Make sure you have a lot of flour on the counter and on the rolling pin and on your apron and all around. If your crust sticks to the counter, then you have a sticky swiss-cheese looking crust. And I'm not a big fan of swiss cheese pie crusts. 

What works for me to get the crust into the pan, is to fold the crust in fourths, move it, and unfold it. It works. Really, it does!

Ok. Now go make a pie. 

With this yummy pie crust. 

Ok?

Fall Break in New Mexico - a picture blog.