Persimmon Pudding....Yummy!

It's that time of year again...Persimmon Time!  I'm very lucky and have access to the two types of persimmons I know of:  Fuyu...sweet and crunchy and Hachiya...sweet and soft (but really astringent if they are not ripe).  We fill the salad bar at school with the Fuyu and the kids just love them.  The Hachiya are grown almost wild here and I gather them for the pulp and make cookies, breads and my favorite: Persimmon Pudding with Hard Sauce.  This pudding was also a favorite of my former mother-in-law a sweet Southern lady from Alabama and such an awesome cook (this is not her exact recipe...since her son...my oldest daughter's father... swore me to secrecy...but it is very close).

Photo Credit

For years I have made my pudding in a makeshift bowl/steamer setup, because I'm too cheap to buy the steamer...such a fool...but this year I found a steamer on Amazon at a great price and went ahead and ordered it.  I'm glad I did...even though it's a bit rinkey-dinkey I like the darn thing and will be trying a few more English puddings during these cold winter months.

My Favorite Hachiya Tree (I call these American Persimmons)

I sorta' steal a lot of my persimmons!  My favorite tree sits off the side of a major road in our county in a field equipment area...nothing around...no houses...no barns...lots of beehives.  Since I'm not afraid of bees I watch that huge tree faithfully every Autumn...and wait for those delicious babies to fall...usually I gather 10-20 at a time several times a season...on my way up to or back from the cabin.

Just of Few Baskets a Year

My friend Paula has a couple wonderful persimmon trees, too...both the Fuyu and the Hachiya.  I'm lucky enough to get several dozen of both varieties from her...I trade her for lots of butternut squash.

My Trade Goods

I puree all those luscious Hachiya and freeze them in one cup Ziploc bags.  Lots and lots of puree for cookies, breads and puddings.  The Fuyu I dry in my Excalibur...yummy!

Puree

My $14.00 Steamer

Oops! A Couple Pictures From My Phone!

Who the heck cares?!  Right?  Well...I want to keep these in a safe place and I think this blog is good for that...so bear with me!

28 Of The California Wedding Guests Visited
The Air boat Ride/Alligator Farm near Biloxi

Air boat!

Leah and Ruben on the Bayou

More Bayou

Buildings Wiped Out

All For Sale!

 

 

Codie and Buddy And The First Dance

 

My Daughter and Her Crew Hamming It Up On The Beach!

Southern Wedding

Codie and Robert (Buddy) Tie The Knot!

We are safely back from our oldest granddaughter's beautiful wedding on the Gulf Coast...everything was wonderful.  The rehearsal dinner was held on the white beaches of Gulfport with a delicious Southern BBQ dinner and S'mores for dessert!  The wedding was held in Pass Christian at a very nice mansion built in the 20's by an Chicago mobster for his mistress!  Not the Southern Plantation I imagined !  It was all very nice. 

Oak Crest Mansion

This was my first time back to the Gulf Coast since Hurricane Katrina.  Our daughter's youngest child was born 2 weeks before the Hurricane, we flew out and spent a few days...and were waiting at the airport in Atlanta when the Hurricane changed direction and headed to the Louisiana coast...we were grounded for many hours in Georgia and unable to get back to New Orleans and our daughter and her family...we ended up flying back to California and then contacting our daughter.  She and her family were very lucky...just a few downed trees...they lived in Ponchatoula at the time.  My SIL is a paramedic and was working for the City of New Orleans at the time and was able to secure a generator and satellite phone for his family...he was away from home for over a month!  Needless to say, all went well for them.  My SIL is now a paramedic on an oil rig in the Gulf and my daughter practices midwifery in Mississippi.  The Gulf Coast is recovering and lots of new building is going on...but I could not believe all of the buildings that were lost...every other lot had an abandoned foundation!  We found ourselves counting one right after the other...such a shame...such a grievous loss.

Cupcake Wedding Cake!