Persimmons ~ The Foreign Fruit

This morning I saw a Facebook post by a friend that said she had juiced persimmons.  Juiced persimmons??? Honestly, persimmons have only ever been the mystery fruit my grandmother made cookies out of when I was growing up.  She used to mail them to me in college and I would share them with a friend who thoroughly appreciated the treat.  But I never knew what a persimmon was, what it looked like, or what it tasted like all by itself.

Since I began receiving a weekly produce box from Abundant Harvest, I've had lots of persimmons laying around.  Up until today, all I had done was puree and freeze them for some later unknown use.  I was intimidated by them, I must admit.  However they have made a pretty centerpiece for my dining table...

Since I haven't been feeling 100% for the past couple of days, I'm taking a break from sanding, painting and packing and making an effort to use up every bit of produce I've stored up.  I actually started feeling much better after a fresh glass of pomegranate-carrot-orange juice! So I did a little research and discovered that fuyu persimmons can be eaten raw as a snack.  Good to know after my failed attempt to snack on a raw hachiya persimmon, which basically turned my mouth to fuzz.  I saw a recipe for fuyu persimmons sauteed in butter and sprinkled with cinnamon and decided to go for it.  I was out of bread to make sandwiches for lunch, anyway, so I had to come up with something for the kids.  I peeled about 4 persimmons and sliced them.  I munched on a raw slice and it was actually really good! Then I added them to some metled butter in my skillet and voila...

I'm thinking these could be used to make a variety of delicious Thanksgiving treats ranging from a savory puree to a baked dessert.  And that's all there is to it--the foreign fruit is no longer so very foreign to me.  The kids loved the sauteed goodness, by the way!