Culinary Adventures with Camilla

It's persimmon season ! I got a phone call from a friend who asked if I wanted a bag of persimmons. Of course! Thanks, Marne. At school drop-off one day recently, she gave me a grocery bag full of Hachiya persimmons. I had to wait until they were soft...then I made this for breakfast! Delish. Ingredients 1/2 C plain Greek yogurt 2 T canola oil 1 T hazelnut oil 4 eggs 1 C organic dark brown sugar 1 T molasses 3 T ginger syrup* 1 T pure vanilla extract 2 C Hachiya pulp 1 t baking soda 3 C gluten-free flour* 1/2 C sorghum flour Procedure Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix all but the last three ingredients in a large mixing bowl until well-blended. Gently fold in the flours and baking soda. Spoon batter into parchment-lined loaf pan. Bake for approximately 60-75 minutes. Let cool in pans for 10 minutes, then invert and complete cooling on a wire rack. *This blog currently has a partnership with Amazon.com in their affiliate program, which gives me a...

Though I always resent when I have to set my clock back an hour - because I don't like driving home from work when it's already dark - I do love that it means persimmon season is upon us. Thanks to deliveries from two friends, I'll be sharing some recipes soon. There are Fuyu persimmons and Hachiya persimmons. To remember which is which: think Fuyu = Flat. F and F. Hachiya are the other ones. I vastly prefer the Fuyu and use them  to garnish soups ,  to top salads , and more. Fuyu persimmons are flat and squat and should be more orange then yellow. These are commonly eaten raw though they can also be roasted. They have a mild, pumpkin-like flavor. I just peel and eat them whole. Jake even eats the skin. Hachiya persimmons are disturbingly unpleasant unless completely ripe. Ripe hachiyas are unbelievably soft - almost liquified into a silky smooth pulp inside. They have one flattened end and one pointed end. Hachiyas are thought of as "baking" persi...

This is a catch-up post. I made this Christmas morning and forgot to post it...until now. Whoops. I had never made monkey bread. I don't even really know what it is...but I figured it sounded like an easy thing to pop in the oven and bake while we all opened presents, chugged eggnog, and lounged around in our pajamas till we had to go to the larger Mateo family celebration in the afternoon. I tossed in some roasted, peeled chestnuts and used the last of my Hachiya persimmons from my friend Shiho to make ours a little bit more festive. As I mentioned, I really had no idea what monkey bread was made from, so I made a cinnamon roll kind of dough. 1 T active yeast 2 t organic granulated sugar pulp from 2 Hachiya persimmons 2 C white whole wheat flour pinch salt 1 T olive oil 1/2 stick butter 2 C roasted, peeled chestnuts 3/4 C organic turbinado sugar 1 T pumpkin pie spice Combine yeast, 1/2 C warm water and granulated sugar together in a mixing bow...

For my October-November  Cook the Books  project, I cooked up some Vegetarian Baked Beans . And while I liked them, my 11-year-old declared, "These are not at good as Nonna's." Okay, challenge accepted. I called my mom to ask for her recipe; she started to laugh. The next time I picked up the boys from her house, she showed me a can. Nice, Mom. I had gotten some dried, organic Blue Coco beans from  Coke Farms ,  in San Juan Bautista. And with the sun-dried tomato ketchup I received from Traina Foods * , I decided to develop a pork and beans recipe to beat the socks off of Bush's! The verdict, from said pork and beans snob: "These don't taste like Nonna's, still. But they are really, really tasty." I'll take that. A few notes about the ketchup... I am not a big ketchup fan. We rarely buy it. We make homemade ketchup , and even then, it lasts us a long, long time. But when Traina sent me two bottles of their ketchup to taste, test, a...

To go with our Thanksgivukkah feast, R made a Rye Pumpkin Pie! Ingredients Crust 1-1/2 C white whole wheat flour 1/2 C dark rye flour 1 T caraway seeds, lightly crushed in a mortar and pestle 1/2 C powdered sugar 3/4 C butter Pie 2 C  pumpkin puree 1 C Hachiya persimmon puree 1 C heavy cream 3 eggs 1/3 cup ginger syrup 3 T organic brown sugar ground cinnamon ground cloves ground nutmeg pure vanilla extract Mix the flours, sugar and caraway seeds; rub in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Stir in 1 teaspoon of water with a fork until the mixture forms a ball. Roll out between two pieces of parchment paper. Press gently into a pie pan. Chill in the freezer until ready to bake. Whisk all of that together and place in the crust. Bake in a 350 degree oven for an hour or until the filling is set. It will be firm to the touch and the crust will be lightly browned. Let it cool slightly befo...

Remember... it's persimmon season ! A couple of weeks ago, a friend gave me a bag of Hachiya persimmons and I have been waiting (impatiently) for them to ripen. Finally, two of them were soft. Mushy, smushy, orange sweetness! I decided to make some persimmon cantucci...with chocolate. 2 C white whole wheat flour 2 T ground almonds 1 t baking powder 2/3 C extra virgin olive oil 1 C coconut sugar 2 eggs 1 T all-spice liqueur dash of ground cinnamon dash of ground cardamom dash of ground nutmeg 1 C Hachiya persimmon pulp 1 C chopped dark chocolate 1/4 C dried cranberries In a large bowl, mix together persimmons pulp, olive oil, coconut sugar, liqueur (use pure vanilla extract if you don't have any all-spice liqueur) and eggs. In another bowl, combine flour, ground almonds, baking powder, and spices; mix into egg mixture to form a stiff dough. Mix in chocolate pieces and dried cranberries. Divide dough in half, and shape each half into a ro...