Inspired Foodie

Journal of a Food Hobbiest

Recipes

Short Rib Ragu with Gorganzola on Rigatoni Pasta

Dec 27

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Short Rib Ragu with Gorgonzola Cheese

Short Rib Ragu with Gorgonzola Cheese

This recipe was originally inspired by a lunch dish of Short Rib Ragu at Bistro La Bon in Charlotte, NC. During the holidays, I found myself craving this dish and decided to attempt a recreation.

I found a wonderful recipe on Gastronomer’s Guide for Pappardelle with Short Rib Ragu and modified it slightly, adding frozen peas in the last 30 minutes of cooking and using Gorgonzola instead of Pecorino Romano because these details were closer to the dish at Bistro La Bon.

This dish would be fantastic with the fresh pasta suggested and is also great with a quality pre-packaged pasta. I made fresh tagliatelle pasta last night and wanted a rigatoni for this dish for “something different”. The rigatoni holds the meat sauce well.

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Persimmon Pudding

Dec 26

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Snapshot of a Persimmon pudding made for my father-in-law's 81st birthday.

My grandmother, Clara, was the first of many to teach me how to cook. She taught me how to make homemade buttermilk biscuits, Christmas ham and many other delicious comfort foods from the Southern US. She made this recipe on Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Every fall, she would gather Persimmons from her tree outside, wash and then pulp the Persimmons. She would then spend several hours processing the fruit using a food mill or sieve with a wooden tool to mash the pulp through the sieve. She would then pre-measure into 2 cup ziploc bags, placing them in the freezer, in preparation for this recipe.

The fruit used in this recipe is not the Oriental Persimmons you find in the grocery store. I believe it’s the American Persimmon variety. Persimmonpudding.com has a variety of resources listed to find the necessary Persimmon pulp.

The key to this recipe is the mix of flour and liquid. When it’s correct, the result is a wonderful dessert with the consistency of a traditional pudding cake (not really cake and not really pudding). Too much flour creates a cake and too little creates a watery pudding, neither of which is very appealing.

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