A Winelover's Wanderings

I have had this recipe for more than 30 years. It came from a friend but, for the life of me, I can't remember who. I have made it many times through the years and have always loved it! But see my notes below the recipe.

Persimmon Pudding

Makes 8-12 servings.

Ingredients:

6 or 8 large ripe persimmons.
2 C Flour
2 C Sugar
1 teaspoon Soda melted in 1 teaspoon hot water
2 slightly beaten eggs
1 quart Whole Milk
1 Tablespoon melted butter

Instructions:

Pulp the persimmons and run through colander. Could also put in food processor.

Add flour, sugar, soda melted with hot water, and eggs. Mix well.

Add milk and melted butter.

Bake in baking dish for 60-90 minutes at 325 degrees.

Serve either warm or cold with a little whipping cream on top. Flavor is very rich, so small portions are probably enough.

I had not made this for a couple of years, so I had kind of forgotten if I made the whole recipe or only half. This recipe makes a LOT, so I think I must have just made a half recipe in the past.

I usually scoop the pudding into serving dishes and top with whipped cream. It is a very rich dish, so a large serving is not required.

Here is the pudding before it went into the oven:

Here are the small puddings just coming out of the oven:

Now don't worry if the pudding comes out this dark - the darker it is (short of actually burning), the more caramel-like it will be:

Last but not least is the pudding in the serving dish:

I made this Apple Gorgonzola Salad again for Slow Bowl in Paso Robles. It is the third time I have brought it there, and I am thinking that people are probably getting tired of it. Shannon says no. So, just in case someone wants to make it themselves, here is the recipe.

Apple Gorgonzola Salad

I don't have an exact recipe for this. The dressing is a taste-as-you-go kind of thing. Here are the approximate amounts for the large bowl of apple salad at the Slow Bowl GTG.

Ingredients:

Apples - 8 large - You choose type - I used 4 Braeburn & 4 Granny Smith for the red and green colors

Endive - 1 package of three small heads at Trader Joe's - Chopped. Or, you can use chopped celery instead

Gorgonzola - 8-oz package of crumbled gorgonzola from (guess where) Trader Joe's

Chopped Toasted Pecans - 1 8-oz package from TJ's

Dressing:

About 3 oz of Cuisine Perel Toasted Walnut Grapeseed Oil (Available online) - I used about half of the 6.5 oz bottle

About 2 oz of Cuisine Perel Spicy Pecan Vinegar (Available online) - I used about 1/4 - 1/3 of the 6.5 oz bottle

Cooking Sherry - A small amount

Instructions:

Combine dressing amounts to taste. Keep it handy as you chop up the apples, and stir dressing in often so the apples won't darken. After the apples are chopped, add endive (or celery), gorgonzola cheese, and chopped toasted pecans. Add remaining dressing and toss to completely distribute. Chill until time to serve.

Cuisine Perel products are sold in some winery tasting rooms, but a much larger variety of items is available on their website:

http://www.cuisineperel.com/

I have personally used a lot of the Cuisine Perel products and have loved them all.

I guess I shouldn't give Jerry all of the credit since he got this recipe from Cooking Light. But I printed out his blog entry and decided to try it, so he should at least get credit for bringing it to my attention! Thanks Jerry!

A really easy recipe and so delicious!

Mustard-Maple Salmon

3 tablespoons Dijon mustard
3 tablespoons maple syrup
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
4 (6-ounce) salmon fillets (about 1 inch thick)
Cooking spray

Combine first 5 ingredients in a large zip-top plastic bag; add salmon. Seal and marinate in refrigerator 20 minutes.

Prepare grill or broiler.

Remove salmon from bag, reserving the marinade. Place salmon on a grill rack or broiler pan coated with cooking spray, and cook for 6 minutes on each side or until the fish flakes easily when tested with a fork; baste salmon occasionally with the reserved marinade.

Regarding the wine, when I think of salmon, I automatically think of pinot noir as the perfect accompaniment. This pinot was from the Central Coast (I bought it in Paso Robles last month). The winemaker, Kenneth Volk, was the owner and winemaker at Wild Horse Winery in Templeton until several years ago when he sold Wild Horse. It was a 2006 Kenneth Volk Santa Maria Valley Pinot Noir and was wonderful!

Oh! We served the salmon with Trader Joe's frozen brown rice with a little olive oil and shredded parmesan on top. It looks a little bland in the photo, but was actually quite tasty.

When we made Chicken Fajita Salad last week for our Salad Samplers group, I particularly loved the spice rub put on the chicken and the Cilantro-Lime sauce. We were going to have grilled chicken breasts for dinner, so I decided to do a repeat performance of those delicious flavors.

For the two large chicken breasts, I doubled the recipe ingredients for the rub - Olive oil (2T), Chili powder, Cumin, and Paprika (2t each), salt, and pepper to taste. We had marinated the chicken in orange juice for a couple of hours (Emeril says this is a good thing to do, Bill tells me), and then tossed it in with the spice rub. It looked beautiful even before it was grilled!

I made the Cilantro-Lime sauce just as called for in the recipe (it made quite a bit) to serve along with the chicken. We had some ripe avocados, which were perfect with the sauce.

It was delicious! Can you tell by looking just how delicious?

Along with the chicken, we had salads of arugula, gorgonzola, and toasted pecans with Sweet Raisin Balsamic Vinegar. Another yum!

Every year when the Copper River Salmon appears in our local markets, we make a beeline there to get some. Their season is very short and, if you miss it, you must wait until next year.

This past week our local Albertsons even had them on sale - instead of the $19.99 regular price, they were $12.99! I know that still seems like a lot to pay, but for a once-a-year treat, it is definitely worth it!

We had never cooked anything on a plank before, so I thought it would be a good time to try. The market had some of those too. The planks needed to be soaked for at least an hour - I soaked them for about six hours.

Here are the planks - there were two in the package:

The salmon filets were just gorgeous! Such vibrant color!

I found a marinade recipe on FishEx.com that I used:

1/2 cup Cilantro leaves, finely chopped
1 T Olive oil
1 Garlic clove, large, finely chopped
1/2 t Salt
2 T Lime juice

Actually, I only used half of the above ingredients because the recipe was for 4 salmon steaks, and I had only 2 fillets.

Here is the fish with the marinade on it, ready for planking:

By the way, this website had a ton of yummy-sounding fish recipes on it. Check this out.

The results were outstanding! Better than outstanding even. The wood flavor from the planks and the lime and cilantro marinade combined wonderfully. I fixed a quick batch of TJ's frozen brown rice, added some Cuisine Perel citrus-cilantro grapeseed oil and chopped cilantro, and we were ready to go.

We only ate one of the fillets, so there was an instant replay of the second fillet with pasta and the citrus-cilantro grapeseed oil the following night. Here that is:

Although I hate the heat, I always love when summer comes because it means wonderful tomatoes and basil. The tomatoes in our garden are still green (Bill's first batch got hit by a frost), so I went to the Farmer's Market in Redlands (about 20 miles from where I live) and got some beautiful, colorful heirloom tomatoes.

So, we had Fresh Tomato & Basil Pasta last night. No cooking - just chopping.

Fresh Tomato & Basil Pasta

Ingredients:

4 large summer tomatoes
1/2 large onion - I used Vidalia, which is really mild
2 cloves of garlic
Basil, about a cup
Olive oil

Instructions:

Chop tomatoes and onion. Mince the garlic. Mix together and add olive oil. Chop basil and add to mixture.

After pasta is cooked (I used multi-color pasta), put pasta in a large pasta bowl. Pour tomato/onion/basil mixture on top and serve with parmesan cheese.

Since the sauce isn't cooked, it ends up being a cool and refreshing summer dish. We will have the leftovers tomorrow night as a cold pasta salad.

We were having salmon for dinner, and I wanted to try something new. A post on the Slow Travel messageboard asked for new salmon recipes, so I looked thru those and immediately noticed the recipe posted by CindyRuth of Baked Alaska for Salmon with Sesame & Orange-Ginger Relish. The good thing was that I actually had all of the ingredients on hand.

The fish was wonderful! I served TJ's frozen brown rice with it and put a little bit of the relish on top of it too. All I can say is YUM! Thanks Cindy!

Salmon with Sesame & Orange-Ginger Relish

Makes 8 servings
Adapted from epicurious.com

Ingredients:

1/3 cup dry white wine
1/3 cup fresh orange juice
1 1/2 Tbsp soy sauce
1 2 1/2 lb. salmon fillet

3 large navel oranges

1/2 cup matchstick-size strips red pepper
1/2 cup thinly sliced red onion
2 1/2 Tbsp chopped fresh cilantro
2 tsps minced peeled fresh ginger
2 tsps grated orange peel
1 tsp oriental sesame oil
1/2 tsp coarse kosher salt
1/4 tsp dried crushed red pepper

Vegetable oil
1 Tbsp sesame seeds, toasted

Instructions:

Whisk first 3 ingredients in small bowl to blend; transfer to 13x9x2" glass baking dish. Place salmon, skin side up, in orange juice mixture;cover with plastic and chill at least 2 hours and up to 4 hours. Bring to room temp 30 minutes before cooking.

Using small sharp knife, cut peel and white pith from oranges. Working over bowl, cut between membranes to release segments into bowl.

Mix red pepper and next 7 ingredients in med bowl to blend. Fold in reserved orange segments and any accumulated juices. (Can be prepared 1 hour ahead. Let stand at room temp.)

The recipe calls for brushing with oil, placing skin side down, sprinkling with salt and pepper, and baking on a baking sheet, in a preheated 400 degree oven until opaque in center, about 20 minutes. Instead, I put mine skin side down on foil, folded the edges of the foil up to make a little tray, poured some of the marinade over, and placed on a hot grill and cooked until just done. Don't overcook salmon or it gets too dry. Then just slide a spatula between the fish and the skin and your fish comes right off and the skin sticks to the foil. Place on a platter, and mound the orange relish down the center of the fish, then sprinkle with the sesame seeds.

I don't know how many of you subscribe to Cuisine at Home magazine, but we have been getting it for several years. It's a little different than most cooking magazines, as there are no ads in it - none at all. It makes the subscription more expensive, but that's O.K. It is also published only every other month.

This month's issue had a recipe for Melon Soup that I tried this past week, and I wanted to pass it along to you because it was delicious. And cool in the summertime heat.

Melon Soup
Cuisine at home - August 2009 issue

Melon soup usually is associated with Thailand, although it's also popular in Bali and on other Indonesian islands. Light coconut milk lowers the fat content of this version and keeps the soup from separating.

Makes 4 servings (about 7 cups)
Total time: 30 minutes

For the Soup:
3 cups diced seedless watermelon
3 cups diced cantaloupe
3 cups honeydew melon
1 can light coconut milk (14 oz)
1/4 cup fresh lime juice (about 2 limes)
2 Tbsp sugar
1 Tbsp chopped fresh gingerroot
1-2 tsp siracha or chili garlic sauce
Kosher salt and black pepper to taste

For the shrimp:
16 cooked large shrimp, shells removed (tails left on if desired)
1 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
1 Tbsp chopped fresh basil
Juice of 1 lime
Kosher salt and black pepper to taste

Blend sliced melon, coconut milk, 1/4 cup lime juice, sugar and gingerroot for soup in a blender until smooth, working in batches if necessary. Transfer soup to a large bowl.

Whisk siracha into soup until combined; season to taste.

Toss shrimp with oil, basil, juice of 1 lime, salt and pepper in a bowl until shrimp are well coated.

Divide soup among four bowls. Float four shrimp in each bowl just before serving.

Per 1 1/4 cups serving: 267 cal; 10g total fat (6g sat); 43mg chol; 113mg sodium; 40g carb; 3g fiber; 8g protein.

I also chopped up some Thai Lime & Chili Cashews (my new favorite thing from Trader Joe's) on top of the soup. We loved it! The second night, instead of shrimp, I chopped up some teriyaki chicken (also from TJ's), and I think I may have liked it even better than with the shrimp.

Needless to say, we will be making this again!