Persimmon, Eggplant and Oatmeal Cookies

Another collection of Kilted Cookery!  Comfort food, interesting fruits and veg, and more.

Eggplant Parm

I was gifted with a couple really nice eggplant the other day, and decided to make one of Lady Sally's favorite eggplant dishes.  I make my Eggplant Parmesan Italian style, not American style. That is, I do not bread the eggplant slices.  I also don't salt them, pan fry them or drown them in olive oil.  There's no bitter taste, no leathery disks of nastiness, and no oil change/draining needed.

2 or 3 medium purple Eggplant

24 oz crushed or finely chopped Tomatoes, preferably from Italy

    Yes it makes a huge difference!

8 oz shredded Mozzarella

4 oz shredded Parmigiano cheese--  not "Parmesan", and not that powdered crud in a can. 

     Again it makes a real difference!

8 oz sliced Crimini mushrooms

Italian spice blend

Olive oil

Slice the eggplant about 1/2" thick. Arrange on a baking sheet. Drizzle with EVOO, and dust with the seasoning blend. Broil on the top rack for about 5 minutes, until they start to brown. Turn them over and repeat. Allow the rounds to cool before assembling.

In a 9x12 baking dish, splash a little of the tomato 'sauce' and spread to cover. Arrange a layer of eggplant slices, topped with a layer of mushrooms, a layer of mozzarella, and then a layer of tomato sauce. Repeat until the ingredients are used up, ending with sauce. Dress the top of the dish with a nice thick layer of parmigiano cheese, slide into a pre-heated 350F oven, and bake for 40 minutes. Remove from oven and rest for 15 minutes before serving.

Lady Sally wants me to tell you that this dish is MUCH better the second day as the eggplant soaks up excess runny liquid and the tightened tomato sauce becomes nearly fire roasted when you re-heat the dish for 20 minutes or so. The trouble is, you have to make a big enough batch to have any to eat the second day!

Notice the extra large wine cork trivet I made for Sally from corks salvaged over a couple years of wine imbibing.

A Yam By Any Other Name...

...is a Boniato.  Lady Sally and I are planning a Caribbean Christmas theme dinner this year.  The main course will be Mojo Pulled Pork.  So I'm experimenting with "island style" side dishes to accompany the royal piggy.   There will be Moros y Christianos, of course, and mashed or fried Yuca and Plantains.  But then I saw Boniato at Publix, and though "Sally's never tasted this."  

Boniato is a "white yam" native to the islands, in particular Cuba.  It's not sweet, but has an interesting nuttiness to it.  They can be baked, boiled, mashed, fried... anything you would do to a potato, basically.  Boniato darken as soon as they're peeled.  One cookbook author suggests peeling underwater in the sink, to keep the flesh mostly white, and I think I'll do that next time.

This time I sliced the boniato into 1/2" rounds and pan fried them as suggested by several Caribbean writers.  They get sorta crunchy on the outside and creamy on the inside, and served as a side dish they're a nice addition to your culinary palate.

For Christmas I plan on cutting them into a large dice and sauteing them with diced onion and red and green bell peppers -- Caribbean Hash Browns!

Diabetic Friendly Oatmeal Cookies

Periodically Lady Sally's work hosts bake sales to benefit our veterans. Since many of them, like me, have type 2 or worst, type 1 diabetes, I provide "diabetic friendly" cookies which, for cookies, are pretty darn healthy. Here's the Nutrition Label I worked up for this recipe using www.nutritiondata.com:

1 cup Oliviotm (olive oil-butter spread), softened

2 cups Splendatm sugar substitute

2 Eggs, beaten

1 tsp Vanilla extract

2 cups Oatmeal, uncooked

2 cups AP Flour

1 tsp Baking Soda

1 tsp Baking Powder

1 tsp Salt

2 cups Craisinstm

Beat the butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla for 5 minutes. In another bowl combine oats, flour, baking soda and powder and salt. Stir while adding the dry mix to the 'wet' combo. Fold in the craisins. Use a 1" disher to scoop cookies onto baking sheet. Bake 12-15 minutes @350F.

A double batch -- 16 bags of five cookies.

Persimmon Cream Dessert

Another under-rated North American fruit! The American Persimmon is a wild tree of the eastern U.S., seldom grown commercially. The name persimmon is derived from pessamin, a Powhatan Native American word meaning 'dry fruit' because the fruit tends to dry on the tree and remain throughout the winter. Trees more than 100 years old develop heartwood which is nearly black and very dense, and has been used as an ebony substitute in furniture and musical instruments.

Left - Fuyu variety, right Hachiya variety Asian persimmons

Most commercially available persimmons come from Asia. If you can find locally grown persimmons, consider yourself extremely lucky.  

Ripe fruit has a high glucose content, but unripe persimmons are highly astringent due to high levels of tannin, which disappears during the ripening process. Protein content is low, but it has a balanced protein profile. 

Persimmon has been used in a variety of medicinal and chemical concoctions. Like the tomato, persimmons are, in terms of botanical morphology, in fact, berries not fruit. Yep.  They have a sort of tomato-y texture and interior construction as well.

For a parfait or similar dessert, use about 1 persimmon per guest, or a bit more (7 for 6 for example). If you have 8-10 persimmons you can make a pie.

2 Persimmons -- peeled and pureed. Fuyu variety can be eaten firm, but Hachiya need to be 'mushy ripe' to be rid of all the tannins

1+ Tbsp Honey

2/3 cup Heavy Whipping Cream (or leftover Thanksgiving frozen Whipped Topping, like I used)

I like to leave the puree a little chunky, just for the texture.  Stir the honey into the persimmon puree to taste; it should be very sweet, since it will be mixed with the unsweetened cream.

With an electric mixer, whip the cream to stiff peaks. Gently fold the persimmon-honey mixture into the whipped cream, or frozen whipped topping. Divide the mixture into parfait glasses, serving dishes, or a baked pie shell. Serve immediately, chill, or freeze for a frozen mousse.