Grandma's Kitchen Table

Cooking The Books; Bread Alone; May Twitter Chef Avatar (Giada De Laurentiis)

      Am a bit behind in blogging here at The Table.  It's been a busy month. Di was hosting a blogging event today entitled Cooking The Books.  The assignment was to make anything we wanted out of one of our cookbooks and pass the love along.  Since my latest cookbook acquisition was the newest Giada one for my birthday, I decided I would pick a recipe to make from it...and make it count 3 for 1 as I could use it for my Twitter chef avatar this month and for a Bread Alone post.  What a deal.  Here is the link to Di's blog about the blogging event, it will also link you to others who participated and made recipes they love from some of their books. Enjoy! 

      We are also having a bit of avatar fun over at Twitter, my baking/cooking pals and I, just to shake things up a bit and confuse everyone each month as to who is who and all.  Nancy came up with the great idea of each of us picking a different chef for each month, all of us making anything we each selected to make from that chef's recipes, taking a photo of our efforts, and using that photo as our avatar for that month.  It has been a great way to learn new chefs and cook something in their repertoire.  May's avatar chef is Giada De Laurentiis, chosen by me...we love Giada's recipes and I have all of her cookbooks. 

      This recipe for Scallion and Mozzarella Cornbread can be found in Giada's newest book, Weeknights with Giada, on pages 198-199, or online here. 

      We make chili quite often here as everyone loves it.  It's the only time we serve cornbread and we enjoy trying different recipes for it, so I am always bookmarking cornbread recipes to try.  This is a very good one...the onions, olives, mozzarella, all make one very flavorful cornbread.  It's also very pretty, not as important to the guys, but it entertains me a great deal. 

      The recipe goes together nicely and I wouldn't change one thing, although I am going to try them as mini muffins next time as I think that would be a lovely use of this recipe...they would be so cute and pretty, and we all know by now I am all about the cute and pretty in food, right?  Admit it, so are you!  The rest of the recipe is great just as written.  Definitely a repeat.

Thanksgiving Dinner Round-Up: Persimmon Pudding

      Because we all had such fun with the Pumpkin Round-Up in October (and because I begged him to host a Thanksgiving one), Phyl decided to host a Thanksgiving Dinner Round-Up, all participants submitting their intended recipes, and Phyl gathering them all up for a post on his blog click here to view them all.
      I wanted to do Persimmon Pudding for this event as it is such an Indiana kind of tradition...I had never heard of it until I moved here, but once I had it, I was hooked.  It is delicious in a I-can't-explain-the-flavor-you-just-need-to-make-it-and-see-for-yourself kind of way.  It reminds me of a mango, but not quite that intense in flavor, maybe a subtle mango flavor, a mango's second cousin who dresses down for every occasion.

      Fresh persimmons (photo at the top) are only around for this part of the year (although you can buy the pulp frozen as well), so once this time of year passes, no one makes it anymore and you need to wait a whole year for it to come around again.  It's sort of like pumpkin pie, everyone makes it this time of year and then you look forward to it the rest of the year until it comes around again. 

      Actually, persimmon pudding has a rather pumpkin pie-like texture to it without the crust.  I am thinking you could put this in a pie shell and have persimmon pudding pie without any trouble at all.  Might be an option actually.   

      There might be a Christmas Dinner Round-Up in the works as well, so stay tuned, or if you would like to participate, drop Phyl a note and he will include you in the line-up...and let you choose your favorite dish to make for it.

Persimmon Pudding

Making the Persimmon pulp mixture:

1/2 Tablespoon of butter, for buttering the pan
1 cup Persimmon pulp (about 2-3 Fuyu persimmons)
1 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Butter an 8x8 inch baking pan.
 
Peel the persimmons, cut into large chunks, and put into a food processor.
Add the sugar, the egg, and the vanilla.
Pulse the mixture until it is smooth.  Set aside.

Making the Persimmon Pudding:

3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3/4 cup buttermilk
1/4 cup heavy cream
1 Tablespoon of unsalted butter, melted

Large bowl:  combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon.
Mix in the persimmon pulp mixture, 1/3 at a time, beating until smooth.
Mix in buttermilk, cream, and melted butter only until mixed.
Pour into the prepared buttered pan.
Bake for 45 minutes...will be lightly browned and puffed on edges, coming away from the sides of the pan.

Serve warm or at room temperature.  Serve with whipped cream and a sprinkle of cinnamon.

It's Pumpkin Time! Pumpkin Cookie Bites

      The buzz around Twitter with my baking/cooking pals for the past few weeks has been all about pumpkin, pumpkin, pumpkin.  'Tis the season for it and all. 

      I'm not a big fan actually, but there are some exceptions and this recipe is one of them...I think it is the Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting in the middle of the cookies that elevates it to "not bad at all" status (interpretation:  these are really good).
      Phyl decided to put a call out for a Pumpkin Dinner Round-Up, all participants submitting their intended recipe to him so he could post them all.  I declined at first, again because pumpkin is not my favorite ingredient, and offered to send some carved Jack-o-Lantern photos as my submission instead.
      One thing led to another, and I succumbed to peer pressure within the week:  only because I saw this recipe/post on Susan's blog two years ago when she first made them and thought it looked like something the guys would love.  (Click here for the recipe and while you are there, take a look around as Susan has beautifully decorated cakes and wonderful food on her blog.)
      I bookmarked the recipe and used excuse after excuse for the past two years not to make it happen.  This week, however, I made the cookies to a resounding round of applause from my appreciative husband who loves pumpkin things and would like to see more them around here.  Being appreciative goes a long way with me, so I will check out Phyl's Pumpkin Dinner Round-Up and see if there might be something else that Mark would enjoy during this pumpkin season.  Here's where to go if you want to check it out as well:  click here for the Pumpkin Dinner recipes and then stay a bit and look around as Phyl has great food with great process photos on his blog.