Persimmons Chips Anyone?

Out of the MANY recipes for DIY dried snacks, this is the first one I read and said, "I can do that!" and guess what? I DID! 

Holistic Squid made it remarkably easy. She takes full credit for the recipe because I didn't put my personal spin on it but I had to share this as a post because --- I have yet to make my own dried fruit until today. I'm not a fan of fresh Fuyu persimmons but I've had them sun dried before from Buena Loma Gardens. I received nearly 2 dozen persimmons in my CSA box and I was bummed that they weren't the baking kind. So, using my mandolin, I sliced the persimmons at two different thicknesses. One was extremely thin which made my dried persimmons come out super crunchy and the other was the next thickness up and they came out chewy. Both, might I add, were tasty! I really liked her addition of the lemon juice. It brought out the sweet notes of the persimmons that I don't taste when I eat them raw. 

Please visit her blog for the original recipe (linked above), but do get inspired from my images. I dried 6 persimmons. I will be making another batch soon. Will you make some too?

Persimmon ... Cookies!!

In one of my CSA boxes from Abundant Harvest Organics, I received persimmons. Hmmm. What to do with persimmons? With every foreign item in my CSA box, I will search the internet for recipes. I've eaten dehydrated persimmons before but I didn't do the drying. So, here's to what I found... and the best part of it all was that my son and I prepared this recipe in the kitchen of Cooking and Kids'!


Recipe adapted from All Recipes, Persimmon Cookies II. These are our changes:

Ingredients:

4-5 Hachiya persimmons pureed (see note 1 below)
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter (room temp)
1 egg
1 tsp real vanilla
2 cups 100% whole wheat flour 
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
Optional: sliced almonds, crushed walnuts, ground cloves (see note 2 below)

Note 1: The best way to prepare persimmons is freezing them then letting them thaw. You can also let them (over) ripen on the counter. This may take a few days so if you're in a hurry, freeze them! Use a pairing knife and peel the skin, throw the persimmons in the blender and puree. Bring the puree to room temperature, if cold, before using them in this recipe. 

Preparation:
1. After prepping the persimmons, mix the sugar, egg, and vanilla. 

2. Add in the pureed persimmons. 

3. In a separate bowl, prepare the dry ingredients: flour, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt and stir until combined.

4. Add the dry mixture a half cup in at a time. 

5. Fold in the optional ingredients.

6. Cover a cookie sheet with parchment paper and drop the batter using an ice cream scoop about an inch apart. The cookie batter will not spread but they'll be big so you may be able to fit 9 cookies to a sheet. 

7. Bake at 375 for about 15 minutes.

Yields 2 dozen. 


Note 2: We omitted the ground cloves and the walnuts from the original recipe. The cookies were absolutely delicious! We thought afterwards since we added a couple extra persimmons than what the recipe called for that we could have decreased the sugar content even lower (original recipe called for 1 cup)! Persimmons are not overly sweet on their own but with the hints of cinnamon and nutmeg they really did shine in this recipe.

Note 3: I made these again subbing the butter for applesauce to try a dairy free version of the cookies. Applesauce is a 1:1 for oil and butter. It cuts down on calories (but who's counting? -- when you're eating healthy fats in balance with each other, focus instead on quality not quantity (or calories in this case)). I would not recommend subbing applesauce. It makes the batter way too runny to set as cookies. I should have tried the batter as muffins but I am not sure they would have held out. 

Maybe you're a baker and have a recommendation on how I could have changed the recipe when it came out too runny when using applesauce instead of butter. Feel free to leave a suggestion below. 

What is your favorite recipe using this type of persimmon? 

Buon Appetito! 

Choose, eat, and live well! =)

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