Recipe: Persimmon-red grape salad with white-wine vinaigrette
a weekday meal or holiday gathering. (Photos: Debbie Arrington) |
With jewel-like colors, this fruity combination will brighten late-fall or early winter meals. It’s simple enough for every day, but attractive (and tasty) enough for upcoming holiday get-togethers.
The main ingredients are few: Fuyu persimmon, red grapes, almonds and romaine lettuce.
It’s the white wine vinaigrette that brings them all together and accents their flavors. Using wine instead of vinegar softens the vinaigrette’s edges and complements the fruit’s sweetness. (It also keeps the persimmon its beautiful color.) I used mandarin orange syrup in the vinaigrette for another fruity note but a little sugar works as well.
Fresh Fuyu persimmons – the squat and crunchy kind – look like orange tomatoes. Like tomatoes, crisp Fuyus make a wonderful addition to traditional green salads. (Save the mushy ones for cookies.)
Persimmon-red grape salad
Makes 4 servings
Ingredients:
1 large Fuyu persimmon, peeled and sliced
1 cup large red grapes, washed and halved
2 tablespoons almonds, chopped
3 cups romaine lettuce, shredded
Vinaigrette:
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons white wine
1 teaspoon mandarin orange syrup or ½ teaspoon sugar
½ teaspoon seasoning salt
Several grinds of black pepper
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Instructions:
In a large bowl, combine sliced persimmon, grapes and almonds.
Make vinaigrette. Combine all ingredients in a shaker jar; cover and shake. (Or whisk ingredients together in a small bowl.)
Pour vinaigrette over fruit mixture. Toss lightly to coat.
Add lettuce. Toss just before serving.
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Garden Checklist for week of June 8
Get out early to enjoy those nice mornings. There’s plenty to keep gardeners busy:
* Warm weather brings rapid growth in the vegetable garden, with tomatoes and squash enjoying the heat. Deep-water, then feed with a balanced fertilizer. Bone meal or rock phosphate can spur the bloom cycle and help set fruit.
* Generally, tomatoes need deep watering two to three times a week, but don’t let them dry out completely. Inconsistent soil moisture can encourage blossom-end rot.
* It’s not too late to transplant tomatoes, peppers or eggplant.
* From seed, plant corn, melons, pumpkins, radishes, squash and sunflowers.
* Plant basil to go with your tomatoes.
* Transplant summer annuals such as petunias, marigolds and zinnias.
* It’s also a good time to transplant perennial flowers including astilbe, columbine, coneflowers, coreopsis, dahlias, rudbeckia, salvia and verbena.
* Feed camellias, azaleas and other acid-loving plants. Mulch to conserve moisture and reduce heat stress.
* Cut back Shasta daisies after flowering to encourage a second bloom in the fall.
* Trim off dead flowers from rose bushes to keep them blooming through the summer. Roses also benefit from deep watering and feeding now. A top dressing of aged compost will keep them happy. It feeds as well as keeps roots moist.
* Pinch back chrysanthemums for bushier plants with many more flowers in September.
* Tie up vines and stake tall plants such as gladiolus and lilies. That gives their heavy flowers some support.
* Dig and divide crowded bulbs after the tops have died down.
* Feed summer flowers with a slow-release fertilizer.
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