Smithy

I can see why! That set is beautiful. How large are they?

I certainly have nothing to add to those flavor combinations, but I think they sound terrific. I'll wait with interest to see what mgaretz suggests. So far I'm in the "why did I buy it if I wasn't goingo to play with it?" camp. A pint of persimmon mixture, treated with extra half-and-half and refrozen, is still sitting in our freezer. All too often, by the time we're done with dinner we aren't interested in dessert...and during the afternoons, we don't indulge. Go figure! That said, we (my husband and I) both want me to be playing with the Ninja CREAMi more, so inspirations and teasing are welcome!

You can also adjust your order to get add-ons. That's where the sablefish comes in. They also offer spotted prawns.

Maybe @jackal10 will weigh in on his experiences. Granted, his AGA was purchased secondhand and was made in the 1940's, but he did some fine things in it / on it during his foodblog.

I don't believe I ever followed up on subsequent batches. I haven't had any problem with mealy texture since that first time, and I've followed more or less the same procedure as you describe for thawing. I have still had trouble cooking salmon so that it didn't dry out: even steam-convection baking in the CSO managed to overdo it for us, no doubt because the filets are so thin. Oddly enough, I've had much better success with their cod, slightly better success with their halibut, and excellent success with the sablefish. What's odd about it is that I'll take salmon every time over a white fish for flavor...but hey, I'm finding ways to cook those white fish so that we both like it!

I sprang for "Buttermilk & Bourbon", since I had to leave my print copy behind for the winter, and for Julia Reed's "Ham Biscuits..." because it sounds like a howlingly fun read. Thanks, Toliver!

That recipe looks like something I should try. I don't grow garlic myself, but I am guilty of overbuying at farmers' markets and then needing to do something with it.

@liuzhou, is there any special type of mango that works best with this? I'm especially wondering about green vs. ripe mangoes, but I know there are many different mango varieties.

Half and half.

Earlier I reported that... I spun it tonight. I used the Sherbet setting, since it was more nearly sherbet than ice cream. It came out grainy, so I re-spun it. Maybe it smoothed slightly from the second spin. Flavor pretty good, but the concoction has a grainy - not icy - texture. Adding a small amount of half-and-half helped slightly but didn't get rid of the sensation. I suspect, but am not sure, that the "grainy" texture is the tannic gritty mouth feel that comes of eating not-quite-ripe Hachiya persimmons*. If that's the case, there probaby isn't much to be done about it. Since we aren't sure what's causing that sensation, we think it's worth tweaking. I've added about 1/4 cup of half-and-half and mixed it enough to melt and level. It's going back into the freezer. *That sensation is distinctive once you've experienced it, but hard to describe. Think of the gritty sensation you get on your tongue and teeth from eating a lot of spinach (yes, even if it's well washed) and you'll be on the right track.

I just unearthed a sealed package of chicken breasts from sometime earlier this year when summer was a-cumin in. May or June. There's no date. (What was I thinking?) The label says it was cooked at 145F and I'm sure it cooked at that temperature for at least 2.5 hours, maybe 3 to 4 hours. Why I didn't label it more carefully is a mystery. Why I forgot it and allowed it to be buried in a crisper drawer is an even greater mystery. My question is, can I count on it still to be pasteurized after all this time? Note that "all this time" consistutes a range of 4 - 5 months. The bag has no air gaps, no poofiness. It has been refrigerated.

I had to look up omani, and wade past the references to the sultanate and its people. Now that I have done so, I see that it's a treatment that can be given to lemons or limes (or, I presume, other citrus). What type of omani did you use? I bought black dried limes some time ago but haven't tried them.

Another idea: as I recall these persimmons have so much pectin that the pulp sets up in a heartbeat after you cook it. Could you cook it down and then pour it into molds for a firmer dessert? Maybe use some gelatin to firm it up, if freezing destroys the pectin? (I don't remember whether pectin is affected by freezing.) I made persimmon panna cotta last year. It tasted good but was rather bland. My husband and I agreed that it needed something to brighten its flavor and appearance. He, the traditionalist, opted for whipped cream. I thought a drizzle of prickly pear syrup was just the right touch.

I grew up with Hachiya persimmons. My mother always made persimmon cookies with them as part of the holiday baking sprees, and I had strongly polarized feelings about them: some flavor was nice, but what was that awful overlay? It was only recently that I realized I don't like, have never liked, and probably will never like the spices that go along with pumpkin pie -- and those are the spices used in the persimmon cookies and persimmon bread of my youth. When I got a windfall of them a few years ago I experimented with making persimmon bread, completely ignoring the usual suspects, and instead going with ginger, cardamom, coriander, saffron and a touch of Berbere seasoning. The loaves came out very well in flavor and texture. You can see them here. In fairness I should note that nobody actually identified the persimmon in the bread! One taster thought it a ginger bread; another knew there was fruit but couldn't identify it. The linked post is part of a larger discussion about spices that go well with persimmons. Cardamom got the most votes.

I can read it, thanks. Thank you also for including that hilarious precarious illustration!

I'll also bite: are you suggesting the potato and pasta salad will be IN the sandwich? Or just a standalone meal?

@Maison Rustique, what a delightful book! The names of the dishes alone are a riot, but the illustrations you've shown really pull it all together. Have you cooked from it? Would you be willing to show a photo of the "Persimmon Sponge" pages? I've a plethora of persimmons and wonder whether this might be a recipe to try.

If we kept ice cream around the house regularly, or if we lived within easy walking distance of good suppliers, I might not have jumped either. (There is a wonderful small ice creamery in Duluth. During the tourist season I can't get near it.) Still...the Shiny New Toy syndrome is powerful around here. I justified it by thinking I could customize ice cream in small batches to my own specifications. Yesterday I finally, after thinking about it all summer and probably the summer before, defrosted our chest freezer. To borrow a phrase from @kayb, some of the stuff at the bottom wasn't of drinking age, quite, but it was old enough to vote. That stuff at the bottom? Frozen pitted cherries; nectarine and peach purees; even some persimmon puree I hadn't realized I'd gotten as far back as 2003. Beautiful color. Flavor still identifiable. I thawed some of the persimmon puree - I had to, to find out what it was - and then mixed it with pureed cherries to balance the flavor more to my liking. Sugar and lemon added some brightness to the mix; a little half-and-half went in to make it more like ice cream or at least sherbet. I'll spin it in the next few days and report back. If the texture or flavor aren't satisfactory, then I'm not out much from the experiment. If we like it, why then - I'll have a dessert that even Love's Creamery hasn't dreamed up yet!

I did not know that. I bought something on Woot! once, at least a decade ago, and promptly lost my login information. Thanks (I think) for the enhanced enablement!

No. It was from our family recipe, but I can't even say for sure whether the mix I spun was from the final ready-to-churn batch or from an intermediate stage. Durned labels fell off in the freezer. No doubt I'll find them, disassociated from their containers, next time I defrost.

We tried the CREAMi again last Sunday night when friends were here. The first batch was from the recipe booklet: dairy-free coffee ice cream, using cashew milk as the base and an espresso powder for the coffee. We all liked it. By the end of that batch it was starting to separate a bit, with water appearing from what had probably been fine ice crystals. The peach I'd spun up wasn't as good as my usual peach ice cream, but that could easily have been because I'd put it in the freezer over a year ago without all the necessary ingredients. (My label notes were sketchy.) No complaints about the texture, though. No pictures, either. Sorry.

If not "sprinkle police", then perhaps "sprinklegate". It's used more than once in that article. Catchy, isn't it?

My mother did that by accident one morning. I don't think she liked it.

We're working our way down through our refrigerator and freezer contents. Last night I roasted a whole chicken over a bed of par-cooked rice. The rice finished in the oven with the chicken juices. It came out pretty well, although the chicken may have roasted too long. This morning's brunch was some of that chicken-flavored rice, with a very small bit of chicken. I wanted the rice juicier. I considered butter, then looked through the condiments in our refrigerator. Behold! I had a tiny container - about 2 tsp's worth - of Little Green Dress that had been hiding among the other condiments. I mixed it into the rice. Oh, my. I think I'll have to make more of that, soon. So much for emptying the refrigerator!

Have you tried their all-white fish package? I've stuck with the mixed because I generally prefer salmon to any of the white fish, but I think I've had better results with the cod and halibut. I'll give the company credit: they make it very easy to pause deliveries if necessary. I also like their responsiveness to email.