Fresh Persimmon Dessert--Light, Easy, and Healthy

About this time a year ago, pomegranates were the hit of the season for me. I simply could not get enough of them. This year, for change, I have gone crazy about persimmons. I buy them by pounds, peel off, cut, and eat like apples, several a day. I have never seen them more ripe and sweet and just cannot resist their taste. They are so perfect that they hardly have this characteristic, starchy aftertaste, but they are just sweet like honey, which makes me almost want to squeeze some lemon juice on them.

This year, I buy mostly the hachiya variety of persimmons. They are larger, sweeter, more juicy, and have a brighter orange color than the more common Jiro persimmons that look like flat unripe tomatoes. In the Middle Eastern or Asian stores, where they truly know how they should taste, they are sold in their most perfect stage--very sweet but not yet mushy.

Sometimes, the products of the nature are so perfect that we cannot do much to make them taste better. I think that it is the case with persimmons. But I was just thinking how to popularize these wonderful fruits, which are rich in oxidants and potassium, but also help digest lipids and therefore help prevent heart diseases.

To preserve their nutritional value I was thinking about serving them fresh. My first idea was to make a smoothie with them. Unfortunately, milk made the persimmon taste too bland. So I puréed the fruits with a blender and spooned over the glass goblets. Then I topped it generously with my favorite Greek yogurt. It was good but the contrast was too strong, so I drizzled a bit of running honey on top of yogurt. It was almost perfect but I just needed some extra texture. I sprinkled yogurt with toasted almonds and when I tried it for the last time it was what I was looking for. It became my favorite dessert in last weeks and sometimes, when I added some toasted oatmeal to it, also a breakfast.

Persimmon Dessert

Ingredients:
4 hachiya persimmons,
1 cup of Greek fat free yogurt,
4 tsp running honey, preferably acacias,
4 tsp toasted almond flakes,
mint leaves to decorate.

Preparation:
1. Cut each persimmon in half, remove the seeds, and the tough core.

2. Peel off each half and chop. Put fruits in a blender and run the engine until the fruit is nearly puréed. Or just chop the fruits very finely. Divide it among four glass goblets.

2. A a tablespoon of Greek yogurt to each goblet. Drip a teaspoon of honey on top and sprinkle it with toasted almonds. Chill for about half an hour in a refrigerator.

Decorate with mint and serve.

Oyster Mushroom Soup--not Only for Vegans

Growing up in Poland I lived among boringly homogeneous people who ate and liked the same, mostly traditional Polish food. There were of course different ways of preparing the same dishes but I do not recall meeting anyone who would not like cabbage or beets or certain traditional meat meals.

It all has changed when I left Poland and especially when I came to the US and started making friends among people coming from different cultures and regions of the world, each of them having grown up in their own culinary traditions. I became acquainted with exotic cuisines and learned many new dishes and included them in my menu.

But somehow, this experience of growing openness and culinary syncretism, runs against the trend that I have been recently noticing with an increasing frequency that more and more people declare themselves being subject to very specific food restrictions or, at least, culinary reservations. Just last month I heard so many times "I do not eat meat. I do not like red meats. I do not eat pork. I am not crazy about chicken. I do not like fish. I avoid dairy products. I am vegetarian. I am vegan."

Can you imagine to have ten such guests over for dinner? I do not cook meat often but at the same time my vegetarian dishes, and especially desserts, often contain at least one egg and some cheese, or milk. Preparing a vegan dish seems to be the only way to meet all these constraints, and to be absolutely sure, it should better be gluten-free.

With this reflection in the back of my mind, I reminded myself about a soup that was often made in my home when oyster mushrooms suddenly became very popular in Poland. I liked it then very much because of the taste of marjoram that is used in that soup. It is a very Polish accent in that light soup, which is also perfect for such a cold day as today.

Oyster Mushrooms Soup

Ingredients:
1 lb oyster mushrooms,
4 medium carrots,
2 celery sticks,
one small leek,
2 medium potatoes,
1 tsp salt,
4 cups of vegetable organic stock (you may not need it if you use organic vegetables or bought them at a farmers' market),
1 tbsp dried marjoram,
1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper
2 tbsp olive oil.

Preparation:
1. Wash mushrooms and cut from the stem into separate pieces. Slice them across the gills
2. Wash the leek thoroughly to get rid of all the sand that is between the leaves. Slice it into thin slices.

3. In a frying pan heat oil and add the sliced mushrooms. Fry them for 3-5 minutes mixing all the time, until water evaporates. Add leeks and cook everything for another 3 minutes, until the leeks become softer and transparent.

4. Peel off carrots and potatoes. Cut carrots in thin slices and potatoes into small cubes. Slice the celery sticks.
5. In a large put 2 cups of water, add vegetable stock with tsp of salt and bring it to boil. Add celery sticks to the boiling water. Let them cook for about 5 minutes, and then add carrot. Cook together for about 10 minutes. Add potatoes and cook them for 15-20 minutes, until they become soft.
6. Add fried mushrooms and leeks to the pot. Season the soup with marjoram pepper and bring it to boil. Let it simmer for about 3 minutes to infuse all the flavors.

I like to serve it with a white baguette.

Pasta with Walnuts, Sage, and Fresh Ricotta--Flavors of Autumn

Even though I do not post pasta recipes every week, in my kitchen I make it at least once a week, often even twice when kids ask for it. We all love it! I cannot imagine my life without pasta. Whenever I give a choice to my kids what to eat for dinner the answer is always pasta.

I always make my own fresh sauce and if possible I try to make it from seasonal ingredients. So during the course of the year my pasta could be topped with mushrooms, herbs, fresh tomatoes, creamy lemon sauce, but most often it would be with our favorite sauce made with roasted red bell peppers. Sometimes I do it with salmon but hardly ever with meat. I often serve it with fresh cheese and always with glass of wine (for grown-ups). And nothing tastes better or more comforting than pasta, and there is no home-made dish that is easier to make in no time.

Last week, I bought a bag of walnuts in shells, mostly to put them on a wooden plate as a seasonal decoration. But they reminded me of a pasta dish that I usually make only in the fall--pasta with walnuts. And I don't even remember where I got this recipe from.

I toast walnuts and sage leaves in butter. When toasted, walnuts become even more aromatic and crunchy. If I have them, I use black walnuts, which are more aromatic than the regular ones and remind me more of those I used to eat in Poland. Then I mix them with hot pasta and fresh creamy ricotta cheese. It is important to use fresh ricotta--pasta does not taste half that good made with the regular supermarket ricotta, which is too dry and chewy. I buy mine at Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, or at the Italian delicatessen. I love this contrast of the almost sweet, smooth cheese and spicy, very flavored taste of nuts and herbs that all come from a fall harvest and smell like autumn. To spice it all up a bit it is good to add a few hot pepper flakes. But also it takes hardly ten minutes to have a wonderful dinner.

Pasta with Walnuts, Sage, and Fresh Ricotta
(Serves four)

Ingredients:
1 box (1 lb) penne pasta,
1 cup roughly chopped walnuts,
1 large bunch of sage leaves, chopped crosswise,
15 oz (425 g) fresh ricotta cheese,
6 tbsp butter,
4 garlic cloves, chopped,
1 tsp red hot pepper flakes,
salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Preparation:
1. In a large pot bring water to boil with one tablespoon of salt. Add pasta, bring it to boiling, turn down the heat and boil until al dente for about 8-11 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, heat a large frying pan. Melt butter and add garlic. Fry them for about 2 minutes, then stir in the walnuts and sage. Fry them for about 5 minutes, until the nuts are toasted and sage leaves get darker and crispy.

3. Drain pasta and add to the frying pan. Mix well. Turn off the heat and add fresh ricotta. Season with hot pepper flakes, extra salt--if you need to--and generously with freshly ground black pepper.

Serve immediately and enjoy.