Life With….

I came home yesterday to a package  that when opened gave me quite a shock – see above – a cookies monster and or Duke blue boa is not  an everyday occurrence, but it was a welcome surprise.  In fact it kind of made my day – who does not want to watch TV decked out in blue feathers?

In the spirit of blue feathers, I decided to play a form of kitchen roulette.  I had bought at Costco a bunch of pomegranates and I had some pumpkin flesh.  I wondered if there was a way to combine them.

To be clear the night before I had used pomegranate seeds with spinach and onion in a salad served with warm caramelized butter nut squash.  I had attempted to make meatballs with local ground beef seasoned with pomegranate seeds, rosemary, and onion but it did not quite work.  I presume this was because I used no egg to hold the meatballs together, I undercooked them at first and them overcooked them, and  the pomegranate I used was not quite ripe.

Now, if you read this you know I love to make a mess (see e.g. crabcakes) and there is no denying that opening a ripe pomegranate and pulling out the ripe juicy seeds is a mess.  Similarly, playing with pumpkin flesh and removing the seeds from the fiber is a mess.  But as much as I love messes, I also love a clean kitchen, and of course last night when I wanted to used the pomegranate and needed to use the pumpkin flesh as it was close to going bad that the disposal would be broken.  Fortunately, I also had a shopping bag an today is trash day so the messes could be quickly resolved.

I tried to research on the Internet about recipes for beef and pomegranates, outside of grilling it with a pomegranate reduction sauce.  Not finding one that appealed, but seeing that others have braised pomegranates and beef  I decided to try that.   I created fresh juice by cutting open a new pomegranate removing the seeds and the crushing them.  It was a juicy pomegranate and created about two cups of juice and seeds, poured that and a half cup of chicken stock into the tagine and added some spinach and onion.  I browned stew meat and threw it in cooking at 275 for about 2 hours.  unfortunately this overcooked the meat for me – but the sauce was delicious and I will reduce what was left tonight to serve over pork.   The idea of the flavors was great, I just dislike well done beef unless it is tender like pot roast.  This was not tender and very well done.

I then made my while that was cooking, I took the pumpkin flesh with skin on, and pumpkin seeds.  I coated both in a mix of olive oil, rosemary, thyme, lavender, salt, and pepper and roasted them at 450 until the seeds were dry and the flesh golden and cooked all the way through.    While it was roasting, I melted butter over medium low heat, and in a separate pan heated about two cups of chicken stock over medium.  I then coated the aborrio rice in the butter mixture and threw in some onion.  When the rice was clear except for the white dot in the middle I poured a dab of apple cider vinegar.  When that was absorbed I ladled in the chicken stock and cooked it spoon full by spoonful until the rice was done cooking.  At that point I added in the pumpkin – which I removed from the skin with the fork, and stirred it in along with rosemary.

Combining this slightly acidic risotto with the sweet pomegranate juice was a unique treat indeed.  And eating it with the pets and starting at a blue boa turned what could have been a exceptionally bad experiment in overcooked meat into a decent one.  Hopefully using the sauce over nicely cooked pork and the risotto will be better.  At a minimum it will be less messy as the sauce I already made!  Maybe I will actually have the guts to wear the boa today!

In honor of the boa and Sesemae Street’s 40th see this clasic video; I will probably do quite a few of these over the next week.

or click here.

All text and copyrights preserved by the author 02csb For more information visit http://www.peebesalgy.com Courtney Brown

Create Your Badge  All text and copyrights preserved by the author for words and original pictures and may not be used without author's permission. For more information visit http://www.peebesalgy.com Follow me on Twitter @ http://twitter.com/peebesalgy or contact me directly through http://www.peebesalgy.com/blog/contact-me/ Courtney Brown | Create Your Badge