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Monday 22 November 2010

Persimmon Cookies

...or kaki biscuits, depending on your linguistic preferences  Although, these things are definitely cookies, I reckon.  You know the ones that Cookie Monster devours (I'm told he's now a politically correct veggie monster!). 

Anyway, I'm often asked what I do with my kaki / persimmons / sharon fruit, whatever you want to call them.  Some people apparently simply eat them, but I'm really not very keen on them, so have always turned them into my "I can't believe it's not mango chutney" chutney.  But now our little helper Cat has found another delicious use for this fruit: Persimmon Cookies.  She was reading a book called Mennonite in a Little Black Dress by Rhoda Janzen.  At the end of the book there were some recipes including this one:

Apparently Mennonite cooking is particularly good, because they chain their women to a stove all day.  Cat has made those for us twice so far (we didn't have to chain her up for that!) and they are delicious, retaining a nice moisture.  Highly recommended recipe.

In other news our olive picking is being constantly interupted by rain.  Sometimes this almost enhances the spectacular views from the olive grove in Popetto:

Other times we hardly see a thing:


And we have had plenty enforced breaks and didn't even bother starting on Sunday:



Finally Eddie and Cat are bonding well:



If you want to know what Cat makes of all this check out her blog.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ooh, lovely and thanks. Like you, I also find kaki too sweet and cloying so I think I'll give both recipes ago.

Angela said...

I love my old Mennonite cookbook, too (just sent you some recipes). What are persimmons in German? Do they EXIST in Germany?
Cat seems to enjoy her time with you! And so does Eddy.

LindyLouMac said...

Reporting back that my husband has now made the chutney and is pleased with the results, telling me it passes well as mango chutney, so a big thankyou.
Now we must try these cookies sometime, still plenty of Persimmon on the tree to do so.

Mr. H. said...

Those persimmon cookies sound delicious, lucky you to have such a good helper. I hope the rain lets up, if it hasn't already, so that you can finish your harvest. I like the name kaki biscuits.:)

Heiko said...

Contadina, good luck with both. You may find with the chutney that all your friends will want some of it from you.

Angela, I believe they are called kaki in German too. My brother was given some a few years back in Bremen and turned them into kaki and kiwi jam. Not sure if they were German grown, but I imagine not as ours barely ripen by the onset of winter in sunn..., sorry rainy Italy. Oh and thank you for all those lovely recipes in my e-mail inbox.

LindiLou, I'm glad your chutney has turned out well. Cookies definitely worth a try too.

Mr. H., today we had a cold, at times foggy day, but we managed get way over our minium 150kg. So it's off to the mill tomorrow morning.

chaiselongue said...

Thanks for the kaki recipe - I find them too sweet and the texture very strange. But our neighbour gives us one from his tree occasionally, and we eat them because.... well, what else do you do with free food?

I hope the rain holds off a bit so you can finish harvesting your olives.