Persimmon Crisp Recipe

Oh persimmons, how gorgeous you are!

When I bought persimmons, I thought persimmon crisp. I love the simplicity of crumbles and I'm a huge fan of fruit desserts so I tend to make crumbles quite often. I've been making my crumble recipe with quinoa topping for a while but this time I opted for a classic crumbled dough topping.

When buying persimmons, be sure to pick ripe, soft ones. Unripe persimmons are astringent and feel a bit fuzzy in your mouth. Persimmons are very sweet when ripe, so you will need to sweeten them minimally when baking desserts. For sorbets, smoothies and other uncooked desserts, you may want to leave them unsweetened, and even add a few drops of lemon juice to counterbalance the sweetness.

In the ramekin above is how big I cut the persimmon pulp the first time I tried this recipe. The persimmon pieces hardened after they were baked. You basically want to prevent that from happening by chopping the pulp a lot smaller, almost to a puree consistency.

Persimmon and Cranberry Crumble Recipe

4 servings

For the fruit
5 very ripe large Hachiya persimmons (substitute peaches)
1/3 cup cranberries (substitute another tart fruit such as blackberries)
3 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

For the topping
1 cup brown rice flour (or other flour)
3 tablespoons honey
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1 egg
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted


Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Cut the persimmons in half. Scoop out the pulp using a spoon and chop it finely on a cutting board. Place the persimmon pulp in a large mixing bowl and mix in the cranberries, honey and butter. Transfer to an 8-inch rimmed baking dish or individual ramekins.

For the topping combine all the dry ingredients for the topping in a medium bowl. Add the egg and butter. Mix with your fingers to crumble and form small dough pieces. Scatter the topping evenly on the fruit. Bake for 20 to 30 minutes.

Serve warm or at room temperature with a scoop of vanilla or clove ice cream.

Banana Pudding

If you’re like me, bananas are probably perpetually on your kitchen counter, honey and cinnamon constantly gracing your pantry and eggs profusely filling your refrigerator space on a regular basis. All you would need is some evaporated milk to whip yourself up a fabulous dessert that takes no more than five minutes preparation time. So this is nothing fancy, dear friends, just a simple, homey dessert for which you probably have the ingredients already.

Ugly, brown, overripe bananas are meant to be baked (fresh ones too). Oh yes! What better than a pudding?

































The texture of this pudding is a cross between a custard cake and a bread pudding even though it doesn't contain any bread. Give it a try!


Banana Pudding Recipe

4 to 6 servings

2 eggs
¼ cup honey
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon vanilla extract
1 (12-oz) can evaporated milk
4 bananas, mashed

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

In a large bowl, whip the eggs with the honey, cinnamon, salt, vanilla extract and evaporated milk. Whisk in the mashed bananas. Transfer to an 8-inch rimmed baking pan or ramekins. Bake for 15 minutes. Lower the oven temperature to 350 degrees and bake for 25 to 35 minutes. (Bake for 25 minutes if using ramekins and 30-35 minutes if using an 8-inch pan.)

Let cool at room temperature. Refrigerate. Serve cold.

Clove Ice Cream

While battling a sore throat with hot tea to no avail, I had to resort to my favorite remedy: ice cream. My body might have tricked me into believing I had a sore throat just to make it some ice cream because as soon it was churning, well, the sore throat decided to take a powder. Can you believe that? Amazing how our bodies can be sneaky.

I’m happy I made this ice cream, sore throat or not. I opted for a flavor I often associate with autumn/winter, colds, sore throats, holidays, Santa, and presents all at the same time. Really! Clove symbolizes all of this in my world. I often drank it in hot milk as a kid when I had the cold blues. Oh, and did I mention that Florida is frigorific this week? Oh, things are horrible here right now. You wouldn’t know!!

The clove is strong in this ice cream, powerfully cooling and warming your palate at the same time. The honey makes it delicious, guilt-free and soft-ish (honey doesn’t freeze so this ice cream won’t turn rock-hard after it’s been in the freezer for a while—yay!)

Serve it with pecan torte, apple tart or pumpkin cake.






































Clove Ice Cream Recipe

4 to 6 servings

2 cups whipping cream
1 cup whole milk or half and half
1/3 cup honey
½ teaspoon ground cloves
4 egg yolks


Bring the cream, milk, honey and ground cloves to a simmer in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Remove from heat.

Whisk the egg yolks in a large bowl. Slowly add the cream mixture to the eggs, whisking constantly. Strain the mixture through a fine mesh sieve.

Cover and refrigerate the mixture for 12 hours to allow the flavors to develop. Taste and add a little more ground cloves if you wish to have a stronger flavor.
Transfer the mixture to an ice cream machine and churn according to manufacturer's instructions. Freeze in a lidded container until set.

Couscous Stuffing

Moroccans make the most delicious stuffing. They obviously don’t celebrate Thanksgiving --I hope this doesn’t shock anyone :)--, but they like to stuff their birds for holidays and other festive occasions. Turkey is not typically cooked whole so they prefer to stuff smaller birds such as pigeons or small cornish hens called “coquelets”.

This is also a wonderful a side dish to prepare anytime.


Happy Thanksgiving!

Couscous Stuffing Recipe

8 servings

3 cups water
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons honey
½ cup chopped almonds or pecans
½ cup golden raisins
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground ginger

2 cups uncooked instant couscous (about 2 "10-oz" boxes)

Place the water, butter, honey, almonds or pecans, raisins,parsley, salt, cinnamon and ginger (the first 9 ingredients)in a medium saucepan and bring to just a boil. Add the couscous and remove from the heat. Cover with a lid and let stand 5 minutes. Fluff with a fork. Stuff your bird or serve alongside it.

Parfait Recipe

Parfait recipe? But where is the recipe? I can hear you say that. I was told by a psychic herself that I have psychic abilities and I believed her even though I never believe psychics. Having a gift that few people in this world possess sounded sweet to my ears, you see, so I chose to believe :) Even though I know that, realistically, my psychic radar only works on and off and with minimal efficacy, I think I read you right this time :)

I prepare a parfait with whatever I have. I don’t typically call it a parfait. I like to eat my yogurt with toppings and I like it colorful so to me it’s simply yogurt with one of the many twists I apply to it on a daily basis. So I may not have exact measurements but it doesn’t matter. Consider this please; has anyone ever died of too many pomegranate arils? Has too much maple syrup ever ruined anybody’s day? Au contraire, my friends. Did your grandmother have an exact recipe for anything? Maybe yours did but mine certainly didn't. The best she could tell me about any recipe is to add a bit of this and a dash of that but I was still able to make it. I took some liberties and it tasted great. As a result I am not totally paralyzed in the kitchen without a recipe today. So all I will tell you about this preparation is that it is made with Greek yogurt, sweetened with maple syrup, topped with pomegranate and pumpkin seeds (the latter are from the Halloween pumpkin I so proudly carved to perfection with my own hands!!) and generously drizzled with more maple syrup.