pomegranate poP!

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So, as I have said before, I am entering the POM blogger recipe contest.  I made trial #1 and #2 last night, and it’s already getting close to what I want!!

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I heard a tip on how to get the arils [the pomegranate seeds] out of the fruit!  If you have never tried eating a pomegranate I suggest you do!!  The season is coming to a quick end.  Just know that, these require patience + an old t-shirt ;)  They stain like crazy and you don’t have much control over keeping some of the seeds from bursting.

So the tip was to take the seeds out submerged in a bowl of water!  This might be standard practice, but I had never heard it before.  Maybe I’ll give a step-by-step instruction the next time I cut one open.

I have been craving salad lately.  Not sure why?  I had one the other night at a restaurant but it didn’t do it for me.  You could tell the lettuce had been preserved with something and it was really dry.  The toppings were sub-par.  I have a hard time ordering salad at restaurants anymore because of this reason.  It’s usually the actual lettuce that I’m most disappointed with.  Food snob? No…just hard to eat something that tastes way worse than when you make it at home! 

So…we had a snowstorm [still snowing] last night and I decided I needed to go to Whole Foods to get my salad ingredients because pizza delivery was not gonna’ do it for me :)

Ahhh, it twas’ delicious.  Exactly what I needed!!

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  • 1/2 baby lettuce mix + 1/2 arugula
  • 1/2 red pepper
  • 8 baby bellas
  • 1/2 carrot
  • handful broccoli
  • 1 hard boiled egg
  • handful cherry tomatoes

I also toasted and ripped up 1 piece of GHBC bread, from a mini loaf I had, and used that for croutons…mmm

I dressed it with an organic 365 brand dressing that was awesome!  It was made with PURE extra virgin olive oil.  Check your labels people!!  When you see balsamic-type dressings a lot of time they are made with 1/2 or less olive oil and sometimes even none at all.  Usually you will see soybean oil or canola oil in the list before olive oil. 

This had a good tang to it too, which must be the apple cider vinegar I found in the ingredient list.  It tasted extremely fresh and cost just under $3.50.

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My oats this morning were insanely amazing! 

  • 1/3c. oats
  • 1/3c. rice milk
  • 1/3c. vanilla hemp milk
  • 1/2 banana
  • 1tsp. vermont maple sugar
  • 1/4tsp. chia seeds
  • 1T walnuts
  • 2T pomegranate arils
  • 1T hempseed granola [bulk bins at Whole Foods + Earthfare]
  • 1T Maranatha almond butter
  • dash of cinnamon

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I stirred this bowl up so everything was combined and it was SO good.  There was some major CRUNCH action with all the toppings and the additional BURST of juice that was awesome. 

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Well, I think we’re kind of stuck inside on this cold snowy day.  We have about 1’ of snow and the roads aren’t that great.  I have a lot to get done before leaving for Ohio this week, so hopefully I will be productive today!  Maybe I’ll even take some photos of the POM recipe I’m working on :)

~Ashley