It's Monday and that means Dinner & A Movie. You may recall that my "dinner" this week was [drum roll please] a Persimmon Nut Roll. I was mighty excited to have the culinary opportunity to make a nut roll, not to mention, eat a persimmon [blech, and oh... blech.]
RDub was equally moved about the persimmon. If you've read this blog very long, you know that RW pretty much loves all food, so I knew that the whole persimmon thing wouldn't throw him for a loop:
ME: "Hey! Dinner & A Movie this week ~ I have to make a Persimmon Nut Roll."
RW: "Persimmons? [pause] Really?"
ME: "What's wrong with persimmons? They grow in California, do they not? You should feel right at home."
RW: "Ewwww. Persimmons. They can be... tricky. My grandma and mom made them. They weren't very good."
Great. Just great. If RDub doesn't like them, then for sure I won't like them.
Not one to be deterred by mere discouragement, I soldiered on and got together my shopping list. And then I went to the grocery store. And another one. And a different one from that. And oh, another one yet. Not one store carried persimmons (do they know the same thing RW knows?)
I read the directions, curious if I could make a Persimmon Nut Roll without the persimmon. I noticed that it called for mashed persimmons. Well certainly I can substitute a different mashed fruit, can I not? Thus, the Persimmon Nut Roll evolved into a Banana Nut Roll. Yum, bananas. Yes, there was still the whole "nut-roll-which-is-probably-equivalent-to-a-fruit-cake" thing, but things were looking up. Bananas. I like them.
Saturday afternoon was my dedicated nut roll time. It was strategically placed between babysitting the 4 kids and Joel coming over for dinner. Joel is a starving law student, I could probably cajole him into eating anything, right? I started in on the several step process. Looks good, doesn't it?
So far, so good. One thing in the back of my head did keep popping to the front of my head to bother me... I didn't exactly have the right sized pan. Seriously, does the 2 inch difference between a 13 inch pan and a 15 inch pan really make that much of a difference? Yeah, I didn't think so either. Apparently it does.

Hmmm. My spirits threatened to sag as much as my nut roll. The directions stated to bake for 15 minutes. Knowing I had a thicker pan, I put it in for 20. And then 10 more. And a good 15 after that. When the top looked nice and firm, I flipped it onto the dish cloth and found the above. Niiiiice. Perhaps, just perhaps the size of the pan DID make a difference. Meanwhile, I started to guess that this was going to be irretrievable. However, I continued on with the instructions, and rolled it up into the dish cloth to cool.
While it was cooling, I made the filling:
At least that part looked promising. I unrolled the nut roll, getting ready to fill it up with frosting and roll it up again, this time without the dish cloth. I'm not sure what I was expecting, given the picture above, but I'm sure this positively exceeded my expectations:
RW briskly walked into the kitchen and stopped short.
"Babe, wow. That looks like a dirty diaper."
However, despite the snarky remark [and can't really blame him for it], he grabbed a fork. My nut roll soon deteriorated into this:
And then this:
Then Joel walked through the door. "What is THAT?" he asked, looking positively disturbed.
"Dinner?" I meekly replied.
I think it's safe to say that I will not be giving out nut rolls to the neighbors this Christmas. I think it's also safe to say I won't be making them for family either.
We fared a little better in the movie:
However... we were watching it on Netflix via our Wii, and right at the exciting part of the film, our internet went down. Good, GOOD timing! We had both seen it years and years ago, but couldn't remembered how it ended. Karen was kind enough to remind us of the conclusion.
I'm all for putting the past behind me [cough cough cough], so let's look forward to THIS week's Dinner & A Movie (they say that the third time is a charm. Let's hope it's so.)
This week's cookbook is:
Leave a comment specifying a page between 13 & 247. This cookbook features menus, so I will make the entire menu (aren't I brave.) Also leave a number between 1 & 10 for the movie selection, this week's movie comes from the Comedy category. I will randomly choose a comment on Wednesday afternoon.
And meanwhile, if it's baked goods you are looking for, I suggest you steer clear [very, VERY clear] of me.
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