Pomegranates Wonderful!

The figs have all been harvested - some by the goats.  The watermelon have been harvested.....sweet and juicy.....well the barnyard animals eat the rinds...nothing wasted around here!....and now the Pomegranates.  Last year, 2 months after I moved in, there were a measly 3 small fruit on the tree.  Some friends had a bounty and shared but this year after the rains and some enrichment of the earth I have a bounty of my own.  I stopped counting at 130.  Well now I have a problem:  what to do with all of these beauties?:

pomegranates 2019

Pom Wonderful

This is what pomegranates look like growing on a tree.  When I was a child my mother would let us pick them but we would definitely have to eat them outside with very few clothes on.  I have a vivid memory of my brother, my cousins and I eating pomegranates while stripped down to our undies and "walking" down the long driveway on homemade stilts.  Oh what fun!

blossoms

They start out as these pretty blossoms

green moms

Then around the middle of summer they start to look like these.

cross section

If you cut a pomegranate exactly in half they expose this beautiful star shape

Poppy

"Poppy, tell me how your nose got so purple"

Arils

 So what to do with this superfood?  Well just eating the arils or drinking the juice is yummy but here are some more suggestions:  (After all I have 100 or so of them and not that many friends)

Pomegranate Margarita

Pomegranate Margarita:

Pomegranate juice

lime juice

agave to sweeten

Tequila

Triple Sec

Jalapeno pepper

These can be addicting.  Try soaking a Jalapeño (pierced but not seeded) in Tequila overnight.  This will add a kick to the Tequila that is powerful.

Pomegranate champagne cocktail

Pomegranate champagne cocktail:

Pomegranate juice

champagne

reserved arils

Pomegranate jelly

Pomegranate Jelly

Time consuming but worth it.

Here's what I harvested today along with my poms.  Now time for my Margarita:

October harvest

Nothing quite like a juicy watermelon

 In May I planted a couple of watermelon plants.....really just for fun.  I tried planting them in Denver but no luck.  What the heck.  There was a place in my front yard that got lots of sun and nothing was growing so I planted some.  Non GMO, etc.  Well I was lucky and harvested five just this last month. One small one and 4 huge......18-21 pounds each.  Ok when do you harvest these guys?  I guess you find out if you did it right when you cut into it:

moon and stars cut

Yep!  It's ripe.  It made a beautiful splash...swish sound when the knife cut into it and it split open.  Yes there are seeds.....big beautiful black ones.  Remember not GMO.  Watermelon have seeds...at least they did when I was a kid.  Mom would cut us a slice and we would have to eat it outside so we could spit the seeds out with enthusiasm......probably the only time it was ok to spit.

on the vine

This is what a watermelon looks like growing on a vine.  This one is a stripy one

moon and stars, after the rain

This one is called "Moon and Stars".  Can you see how it got its name?

moon and stars, 21 pounds

I only had one moon and stars o harvest but it weighed 21 pounds.....that's a lot for a watermelon

watermelon margarita

I have been just eating it cold and enjoying spitting out the seeds but watermelon juice makes a good base for a Margarita:

1 quart watermelon juice

1 cup freshly squeezed lime juice

sweeten with Agave or simple syrup (or a ginger simple syrup)

fresh grated ginger

Rim the glass with lime juice or ginger and sugar

Not quite the Jimmy Buffett version of a Margarita but it is 

amazing

Happy watermelon seed spitting