Adventures In Produce – Pomegranates
Pomegranates are an unappealing looking fruit in my opinion. I never really thought much about them because they always looked like a cross between a potato and an apple – a combo that didn’t sound too tasty. But, as we are doing our weekly Produce Adventure series the pomegranate became a serious curiosity for me and today we picked up one at our local produce stand after our Saturday lunch date. One was it – at $1.99 a pop I wasn’t going to be getting any extras.
Then, I sliced sections in the fruit (see pictures). I did this all the way around.
I soaked the fruit crown-cut side down in a bowl of water for 7 minutes.
After 7 minutes I pulled each section off. The look of the fruit inside was not what I had expected. Actually, I thought it looked kinda gross.
Then I had to de-seed this thing which took, like, forever. My bowl turned out to be too small so I got a bigger one and dumped everything into it. 
The seeds sank to the bottom of the bowl and the rind floated. This made it much easier to separate after the de-seeding was done. 
I just used a slotted spoon to remove the floating debris and discarded it along with the rind. 
Then I rinsed off the seeds in my strainer making sure to remove any stuck on rind parts.
The seeds are the part you are supposed to eat and they were very sweet and flavorful and kinda burst in my mouth. I was quite impressed. All the work that went into preparing it for eating was definitely worth it and there was plenty of yummy fruit to go around. Everybody really enjoyed it, all 8 of us. Even Sam(19mo) thought quite highly of these little seeds. Then again, he likes everything.
We also picked up a large-ish bag of raw peanuts to roast and boil. I LOVE boiled peanuts. Living anywhere but in the South makes them hard to come by – people think you’re nuts at the mention of boiled peanuts. Ryan roasted some already, which is much faster than boiling. He is one of those North Westerners who doesn’t appreciate boiled peanuts at all. His roasted bunch turned out very tasty, however. My boiled peanuts are still in the crock pot.
What will it be next week? There is so much produce that Ryan and I have never tried. Any suggestions for something unusual? Chayote maybe? It looks kind of scary to me.
Then, using a knife Kait punched holes in the sides of the box so the boys could run wooden stakes through it – the cheapest kind we found were in the gardening section at Kmart. These stakes created shelves to hold up our drying racks. It was a simple task and only required a little work to make sure they were somewhat level. They left room for the lamp in one corner. If any of the foil gets ripped up when you cut the holes make sure to patch them with more foil.
Then came the light that is necessary for creating heat. Ryan picked up a regular ceramic light fixture from Lowes for around $3 and attached the extension cord to it. This is where your basic knowledge of electrical gobble-d-gook is needed. Employees at Lowes or Home Depot are usually extremely happy to help with this kind of stuff if you don’t know what you are doing. 
Gabe screwed in a 200 watt bulb and they called it good.
We also learned not to tape down the lid when we are drying something. Although we didn’t want a giant opening we do need a way for the moisture to escape.
I was able to put two of my own pictures on my fruit roll-ups – my oldest as a baby and as a 13 year old. Not only that but there were crop, brightness and contrast tools available right on the My Fruit Roll-Ups website helping to make designing, fitting, and previewing my sticky, fruity confection that much faster! While the Fruit Roll-Ups are red and the only color you can put on them is black, the outlines and shading created a fun Roll-Up that shows my chosen photos quite clearly.
