Persimmon Bounty

When our house in Oregon sold quicker than we expected last winter we ended up spending about six months in California before moving to Wyoming in the spring. Our winter in California was wonderful in many ways. I loved the year around Farmer’s Market and the amazing amount of fruit and nuts that Joe’s family grew. We enjoyed walnuts, almonds, grapefruit, oranges, mandarins and I was introduced to pomegranates and persimmons. With all of the wonderful produce I was smitten with California.

We now live in Wyoming and our local produce selections are quite different. I was ecstatic last weekend when we saw Joe’s Aunt and Uncle who were visiting from California and they told us they had brought us homegrown fruit. I am never opposed to being gifted high quality food from others (it really helps with our food budget) and when I was shown the persimmons, kiwi, mandarin and lemons my mind was racing with what to do with them.
Here are some of the persimmons and kiwi she brought (I have already froze about half the persimmons and we ate a good portion of the kiwi). The first time I had persimmon I wasn’t quite sure how to eat it and bit into it like an apple. I quickly discovered that wasn’t the best way. The skin is very bitter (Jenny has a great description of the flavor of persimmons plus a recipe). Joe told me that he likes to squish out the inside of a very ripe persimmon and eat that.

Here is the persimmon puree (I just cut an X in the persimmon and squish it) which is very good and sweet. I freeze the very ripe persimmons whole and then just let them set out a few hours or overnight to thaw.

The persimmon is especially good when mixed with plain yogurt. The fruit is so sweet that no additional sweetener is needed.