Gavin & Kindli’s News, events, updates & opinions on the weather
It’s been seven days since we carved into our orange roast turkey and we’re still eating leftovers. We’ve had turkey sandwiches, and turkey tacos. I debated making turkey soup, but that can be hit-and-miss and I didn’t want to miss and end up with gallons of soup.
Today’s new and creative use for turkey was turkey salad, like Chicken Salad, only with turkey. It tastes quite good on sourdough.
Occasionally I make something that is so awful that I throw out the recipe and NEVER EVER EVER make it again.
Today was one of those days.
Added to the list of things I will NEVER EVER EVER make again: persimmon chutney.
You could argue I didn’t have a good recipe (quite possible), that I didn’t follow the directions exactly (I can only follow them as exactly as they are written), and that persimmons shouldn’t be turned into chutney (I’d agree, I had a lapse).
They started off well enough, I soaked the lemons over night, blanched the persimmons, peeled and diced them, and boiled everything the way the recipe dictated.
It smelled fairly good while it cooked, and it seemed to be going well, but the moment it began to cool off the entire kitchen began to smell of apple cider vinegar and fermenting fruits.
The smell was enough to drive me from the kitchen, but I had to put it in jars, a sticky task. None of the lids drew any suction, so everything had to be refrigerated for health/safety reasons.
When Gavin got home he made me air out the townhouse further, probably a smart move on his part. The kitchen had a slightly pungent aroma.
Eventually I was brave enough to try the chutney, it tasted bitter and chalky. Not something I would want to buy, give or receive, and certainly not something I would want to put on a platter with cheese and crackers.
I think I will continue with simple things like persimmon jams and jellies. They are far more straight forward and I know how they should turn out.
Dad’s newest book Ace: A Texas Confidence Man is now avaliable from Amazon and Barnes & Nobel.
From the back cover:Following the loss of his lucrative oil-industry job, Ace Mulligan quickly learns that available work within the confines of the law doesn’t readily meet his financial requirements. He decides to turn his many talents toward jobs beyond conventional legal parameters, beginning with the heist of a gold coin collection worth half a million dollars.
For more about Dad’s books, check out the Trudell’s Books blog.
Yesterday’s persimmon bread hardly put a dent in the bag. As I did not feel inspired to make more persimmon bread, I sought to find other unique ways to use this special, seasonal fruit.
I came across quite a few recipes for salads and chutneys, but I was skeptical. I’ve never really eaten chutney, and the bitter taste my fingers had after handling them yesterday left me questioning their use in salads.
So what do you do with several pounds of persimmons?
The internet was full of options and I settled on persimmon jelly. I have made jelly before: a few years ago I made green-grape jelly from the grapes growing in my parents back yard. It required lots of sugar and lots of rather tart grapes. The end result was tasty and tangy-sweet.
Persimmon jelly was quite similar, the main difference was the use of pectin, but that worked easily enough. It got dumped in with the lemon juice and everything was brought to a rolling boil.
Nick was quite helpful. He stirred the molten sugar/persimmon mush as it worked slowly to a rolling boil, as I pulled sterilized jars out of the boiling water.
The only problems I encountered were with the boiling water and jar lids, and placing the filled jars of jelly back into the boiling water. There really wasn’t a good way to do it. Nick ended up scraping the lids off the bottom with a spatula, and I donned an oven mitt to carefully drop the little jars back in. It was tricky: the filled jars tried to slip, and tip over.
The jelly itself turned out quite good. It is a beautiful amber-orange color, and has set quite firmly simply cooling on the counter top. The flavor is tangy, slightly persimmony with a subtle hint of lemon. It was similar to the green grape jelly I made, which tasted good on wasa toast with cream-cheese.
Beneath the cut is my own interpretation of several jam/jelly recipes, and several links I found to be helpful.
When my father-in-law showed up for Thanksgiving he came bearing a bag full of persimmons. My in-laws have an impressive persimmon tree in their back yard and during this time of the year it yields an impressive amount of fruit.
The bag of persimmons have been sitting in our living room and their novelty has been wearing off. Gavin has already voiced doubts over his co-worker’s desires, so I turned to the internets for help.
The internets yielded a recipe for persimmon bread that required 4 eggs, I only had 3, so I bookmarked the recipe and continued my search. I also found a recipe for persimmon chutney, but that required some over night work, so I’ll try it later.
I found several persimmon recipes in Cooking Light (I sometimes grab a copy when standing at the check out line). The one that looked the easiest was Persimmon Gingerbread (I had ingredients on hand).
The end result did not look, smell, or taste like persimmon (I think that was the point). Baked in my edge pan and lightly dusted with powdered sugar, each piece was moist, with chewy edges, and pleasantly crunchy pecans. Very successful. Warm, it would probably taste fantastic with vanilla ice-cream.
Photos from Thanksgiving have now been posted in the Oct/Nov Probably Dec album.
Dulce carves the turkey, Nick looks on, Gavin & Kindli set the table.
The album also includes photos from Irene & Pete’s visit to CA, random photos of the townhouse, and pictures of Nick. Locations: Gavin & Kindli’s Sebastopol townhouse, SF area, along Hwy 1, Drake’s Beach, and the Elk Reserve.
So far everyone has only told me positive things about yesterday’s Thanksgiving Experience. Words like “fantastic” “amazing” and “incredible” were used to describe the cheesecake, pie, mashed potatoes, and stuffing. The salad, orange cupped yams, and green beans Dulce (my MIL) brought also received high praise.
As promised, I will list all the recipes I used on Our Recipes page. Sadly, I don’t have as many (any?) pictures of the food this year, so you will just have to trust me when I say everything looked yummy.
We started Thanksgiving by going to the Gratitude Service at the CS church in Petaluma. They held it at outside at the local park, although it was a bit brisk, the weather was beautiful. There was a mid sized play ground nearby so the smaller children could listen in and swing/climb to their hearts content. Several people also brought their dogs along… some of the dogs had unique attire (little dress/harnesses).
After church Nick, Gavin, Megan and I drove home to put the turkey in the oven. It was a simple bird, stuff cavities with quartered oranges, rub with orange marmalade, roast at USDA suggested temp/time. Check occasionally. Last year it took 7 hours, this year it took 3 1/2, and we had a larger bird.
Stephen napped upstairs, and Dad napped downstairs. Mom, Dulce, Megan, Nick and Gavin took turns playing Wii Sports, and rotated through the kitchen.
Dulce & Irene play Wii Tennis
The turkey was done a little earlier than we anticipated, at around 3:30 (we’d estimated 4), so we sat down for dinner around 4:15. I hope someone took a picture of the table and the buffet.Yes Stephen, you can come back and enjoy the entire meal again, we have enough leftovers where we can easily accommodate such a request.
Tuesday Mom, Dad, Nick and I set out for Bodega Bay. We ended up skipping Bodega Bay and just driving along Highway 1 and pulling off occasionally to admire the pretty scenery.
When we got home, Dad napped and I introduced Mom to the joys of Wii Sports. She got pretty good at it, and then trounced Nick in bowling, tennis and golf.
Photos of our adventures in San Francisco can be found in our Picasa Album Oct/Nov & probably Dec.
Nick and I arrived in SF a little earlier than we anticipated and parked near the Palace of Fine Arts. We walked around it a few times, then along Marina, and around the Palace of Fine Arts again. It was built by Bernard Maybeck (same guy who did Prin), and if you donate $10,000 to the restoration project you’ll get “significant recognition.”
Nick & Gavin enjoying a picnic lunch at Drake’s Beach.
Today Nick, Gavin and I drove to Drake’s Beach. As we got closer to the coast it got foggier and slightly drizzly. We picnicked at the beach, enjoyed the scenery, and looked at all the cows. We drove home via Petaluma and Santa Rosa.
