Twist without Stain

Pomegranate Relish

For this week's challenge, pomegranate came to mind of the boyfriend.  We still had a couple of left from our first Farm Fresh to You delivery and we thought, why not use them for the challenge.  Besides, what is there to do with a pomegranate aside from just opening one up and eating it.  That's normally how I handle my fruit, no matter how complex it is.  Pomegranate on my list of fruits that I enjoy but dislike in getting into.  Simply because when you open a pomegranate you face it staining things.

I have ruined a few things from opening up a pomegranate but it doesn't stop me enjoying one.  The juicer they are, the more trouble they are.

Anyways, as far as the challenge, it wasn't enough to just get one open and call it a day, so I found a recipe that didn't require much in terms of preparation or extra ingredients.  I also figured, it is getting close to family food gatherings so I better see what I can prepare to satisfy even the most picky of tasters.

For this pomegranate relish, it took only a shallot and some cilantro to add an extra boost of flavor to the pomegranate.  It also was a relatively quick dish to "cook" once all the pomegranate was extracted from the fruit itself.

Hopefully the challenges for the remainder of the year will be one of less mess.  Fortunately, the mess of this dish was minimal since the pomegranate was just under full ripeness and wasn't too juicy.

We've All Gone Bananas!

Roasted banana with brown sugar walnut glaze

In the spirit of the return of the weekly food challenge, the boyfriend picked the magical ingredient: banana.  I could have done banana bread or banana walnut muffins, but I wanted to go beyond the standard banana fare of taste.  I also wanted to keep the dish light since it was also the night the boyfriend cooked.  He is known for at least one dish: pasta with pasta sauce.  Fortunately for me, and for him, he didn't cook his standard of when I'm out of town or before I moved into his life.

He prepared chicken with shredded carrot and mushroom served over mash potatoes.  Now before the carbohydrate police get onto me about the amount of carbohydrates the standard amount of mash potatoes, he put the remainder of the leftover low sodium vegetable broth from my experiment of broccoli cheddar soup (broccoli and spinach with minimal cheese, gluten free and vegetarian) instead of cream or milk.  See, we can be healthy when it comes to certain foods.  Especially now that I'm gone nearly every other week and my choices of "fresh food" come close to nil.

Anyways, for the banana.  I chose to do a roasted banana and roasted walnut brown sugar glaze dish.  The low amount of brown sugar was quickly masked by the amount of lemon juice and minimal butter coating the roasted walnuts.  The roasted banana also heightened the sweet taste factor, so if you were to do this recipe, make sure the bananas are ripe but not ripe enough to want to make banana bread or banana muffins ripe.  The banana should be firm not overly squishy since it has to hold up to 450 degrees for 5 minutes.

Farm Fresh to You: apples, pears, grapes, oranges, kiwi, pomegranates 

This week was also the first week our "Farm Fresh to You" delivery showed up to our door.  I picked out the smallest box, and since the delivery date doesn't come around until Wednesday, we opted for the fruit box.  I just didn't expect as many apples in the box.  Either way, about a 1/4 of the contents within the box is already gone.

My $9.99 do-it-yourself brew kit

What's also cool about this box is that there's a recipe within the box for one of the contained items in the box.  Maybe upon the next delivery, I'll try out the recipe and it can be part of the challenge of the week.  We shall see, what the boyfriend decides, because he's still the guinea pig in all of this.

On another note, the boyfriend took my parents and I to brunch last weekend.  Which was a nice "welcome home," and it also meant no dishes for either of us to do.  It takes a bit to get my parents to get out of the house during the 49ers football season, or at least my dad anyways.  We also had to meet the mom's friend's daughter later in the day in Oakland so we decided to make a day outing.  Between brunch and the bookstore, the boyfriend and I had to get back to the apartment to take care of the pups.  But before we headed back, we all hopped into Beverages and More.  I picked up a beer brewing kit.  Now before I have the anti-drinking wagon on me, hear me out a little.

I enjoy my beer and wine on occasion and my brother took up the hobby within his one bedroom apartment.  My brother-in-law and sister decided to open a hard cider brewery.  So perhaps it is in the blood.  Though my taste buds on beer isn't that refined compared to the boyfriend or the brother or the brother-in-law, so I refused to invest so into a kit when I'm not so sure if I had the gene or the blood to do it.  The average 6 pack of beer costs $8-9 USD, so I took that into consideration when buying the brewing kit.  The listing price was $42.  Absolutely RIDICULOUS if you ask me!  So I am happy to announce this Do-It-Yourself kit was only $9.99 for Beverages and More Club members!!!!

So, I figure, why not?  It will take 2 weeks to brew, and if I put it to set tomorrow (Friday), by the time I have to leave on Tuesday, it'll be ready to set.  Who knows, maybe by Thanksgiving we'll have our own IPA microbrew to present to the families...to be continued.

Farm Fresh to Begin Soon

In spirit of keeping things fresh, local and in challenge requirements, I finally signed up for a service that should be fun: Farm Fresh to You (http://goo.gl/clbMZV).

I ordered the smallest possible fruit box for both the boyfriend and myself.  I also ordered it for the frequency of every other week since I'm still learning a new job and not always around to enjoy the fruits of my labor (pun intended).  This doesn't mean however that the challenge halts, just makes it even more challenging, I think.

Budget wise, I think it will be okay since I don't spend a lot of superfluous or access on stuff.  At $25.00 every other week, I think it is going to be a nice treat and bargain.

Ground Pork isn't Grounded

Ground pork is one of those ingredients I sometimes don't always understand the purpose of.  Aside from the constant comments from the boyfriend and the boyfriend's brother saying, "its just tasty," I really haven't cooked pork.  The boyfriend requested that I ground the pork in his meat grinder.

While researching what cut to ground, I found that the best cut to ground was the shoulder.  I also decided to do a bit of an experiential meatball with the ground pork since I really just had no idea what to prepare with it.  Egg rolls were a bit overdone in my history of ground pork so I experimented with Italian meatballs and fresh spaghetti.

I combined the ground pork with ground beef to make meatballs, and fresh spaghetti consisted of egg, flour and salt.  I cheated when it came to the sauce, but the rest tasted pretty darn close to what I have tried in an Italian restaurant.  I was personally impressed and don't mind trying to do this again!

Just as long as the boyfriend isn't in the mood for quick fresh pasta for a challenge...

Strawberries with Balsamic Vinegar

Strawberries are one of the many fruits I don't mind just eating straight out of the carton once washed of course.  Thinking of what to do with strawberries is also a bit of a challenge.

I chose the simple route for this one since I was hitting a roadblock.  I chose strawberries with balsamic vinegar.  To complicate the challenge though I paired it with fresh vanilla ice cream.  I had never gotten the chance to make ice cream out of my Kitchenaid and thought, why not?

A good pairing even though the ice cream was more like frozen yogurt since we were too impatient to taste it.