Persimmon Pudding from the Backyard

Ah, the adventures of cooking!  Cooking is officially messy, time consuming and exhausting.  However, it's also fun, rewarding and surprisingly educational at (most) times.

Last week I decided to start this adventure off with a simple  recipe.  I've become proficient with making banana bread over the last couple years; I've even gone as far as adjusting the recipe and adding my own personal flourishes (my now office famous Blueberry Chocolate Chip Banana Bread is a personal favorite of many co-workers).  How hard could a pudding be?

I happen to have a persimmon tree in my backyard.  The fruit is so ripe that the persimmons are literally falling from the sky and splatting on the ground.  Winston (my four-legged kitchen helper) has been thoroughly enjoying licking the remains of splatted fruit.  I managed to pick the lowest hanging fruit and headed back into the kitchen for some cooking.

Lesson #1 - Persimmon pudding is not "pudding."  Growing up in the age of Bill Crosby and J-E-L-L-O! I was thinking my pudding was going to creamy.  Granted, it was a pudding at one point:

But the thing about old fashioned puddings is that they are just that, an old fashioned pudding.  The final product ended up being more of a soft mix between a bread and a cake.  Upon further research (after the fact) a traditional pudding should be a soft cake-like bread with a gooey middle.  

Lesson 2:  Read the entire recipe card before starting.  Make sure you have enough time for prep AND cooking.  Due to poor timing on my part, I had to refrigerate the pudding overnight, thus stiffening it up.  I may have also incorrectly steamed the pudding (my foil tent was completely sealed, hence much of the steam must have gotten out).

Lesson 3:  Know how to do ALL the steps in the recipe.  Thank goodness we live in a digital, internet age.  Google has quickly become my favorite kitchen tool.  

Lesson 4:  Even if it doesn't look pretty, if it smells good, people will it eat.  While the final product wasn't exactly a picture perfect presentation, I was assured by my guinea pigs -my gracious coworkers - that it was extremely yummy and satisfying.  

Lesson 5:  Wait until after you get over a cold to cook.  Then you can actually taste the fruits of your labor!  However,  I've been assured by the guinea pigs that the pudding was delicious.  So delicious in fact that it lasted exactly 30 minutes from the time I announced the dish was in the kitchen to when the last crumb (literally!) was eaten.  It disappeared so quickly, that I didn't even get a photo of the finished pudding!

I've frozen a number of persimmons, and might just attempt this recipe later this summer.  Next on the list:  dinner rolls.

If you can't stand the heat...

So, I acknowledge that this is entirely inspired by a melodramatic moment last night.  I finally broke down and watched Julie & Julia, the movie where Julie Powell decides to bake every single recipe from Julia Child's The Art of Mastering French Cooking.

But, my personal adventure is much more sentimental than a 29 year old trying to make sense of her life.  While I am 29 (okay, creepy!), I pretty much know where I'm going in life.  Where this adventure starts is in Glenn County, the family seat.

My grandma Kate was a true lady.  She had the hospitality and grace of a western frontier lady.  She grew up during the depression, married a quality man, gave birth to two amazing sons, and was the epitome of "grandma."  Catherine Carlise Fiack Lohse passed away in November 2010, after 92 amazing years.

During the clean-up of her house, I had two goals in mind:

1. Get her china;
2. Ger her recipes.

Three stuffed to the edges recipe boxes and a stack that easily fill a fourth box later, and a month and half after her death later, I'm ready to start.

I promised the women in the Lohse family I would compile a cookbook of our favorite recipes from Grandma, and that'll happen.  But, during this process, I'm making a promise to myself:  Once a week, I will cook a recipe.

So, here's to you Grandma.  You made the best spaghetti sauce, the yummiest cheese amburgers on white bread, and by far the most amazing, perfectly cooked M&M cookies!