Persimmon Salsa

This recipe makes some very compelling salsa. The taste is fresh, sweet, and spicy all at the same time. I first tried it at the grocery store and I was hooked. The grocery store chef was trying to promote persimmons, something I had never heard of before.

Persimmons are an orangey-yellow tree fruit that resemble a tomato. It tastes more like a nectarine but looks a tomato. I didn't buy persimmons that day but I took the recipe.

The only downside to this salsa is the cost. Persimmons at my grocery store sell for $1.69 each and this recipe calls for six. And maybe it's because I'm a novice but chopping the ingredients by hand took a long time. My husband and I kept joking "Still chopping...." But the salsa is worth it. I was worried we'd have to can some of it because it makes so much, but we devoured it within days.

This would make a great contribution to a potluck too.

Ingredients:

6 Fuyu* persimmons

3 tomatoes

2 limes

1 red chili pepper ( or jalapeño pepper)

1 bunch of green onions

1 small stalk of celery

1/2 cup of tomato sauce

1 tbsp of salt

Directions:

1. Dice all ingredients and add into a bowl.
2. serve with Tostitos scoops.

* Most grocery stores sell two kinds of persimmons: the Fuyu, the kind you can eat right away, and the Hachiya, the kind you can't. If you bite into an unripe Hachiya persimmon, it is if you just drank six cups of extra strength tea, says Tony Tantillo, The Fresh Grocer. Read more about it here.

Inspiration: Longo's Grocery Store.