Pomegranate - Raspberry Vinaigrette and the Salads

Pomegranates are quite in season right now. They come here from the Mediterranean regions. I love to add them in fruit salads, but I felt like making something along with green salads leaves and then the thought of a red raspberry vinaigrette came to my mind, which I had eaten once a long time ago at a restaurant. Since I had frozen raspberries I felt like trying it out.
While making the vinaigrette, I remembered the bottle of pumpkin seed oil which I had bought recently, after having prepared some pumpkin recipes and having felt the urge to use pumpkin seed oil as well. But somehow I never came to use it until now. And I opened the bottle of the oil and the smell of it told me immediately that it was just the right kind of salad oil for this sweet dressing. It has a very pleasant, a sweet and delicate flavour, which you don't guess on seeing the dark colour of the oil. The dark colour of the oil made the dressing not so bright red in colour, but I feel it still looks quite beautiful.

Pomegranate Raspberry Vinaigrette

Modified from the recipe of Raspberry Vinaigrette from 'Le Cordon Bleu - Saucen (German version)'

Ingredients:
50 g raspberries
50 g pomegranate seeds
2 1/2 tbsp white wine vinegar
50-100 ml pumpkin seed oil (organic) - use quantity to taste
100-150 ml neutral oil like maize or sunflower (depending on the amount of pumpkin seed oil used)
1 tbsp sugar or to taste
salt and pepper to taste

Method:

• Puree raspberries and pomegranate along with the vinegar using a hand stick blender
• pour the oils slowly one after the other while mixing with the hand blender
• pass through a fine sieve to remove the seeds
• add sugar, salt and pepper to taste

Avocado and Pomegranate Salad


Serves 4 people

Ingredients:
1 small yellow bell peppers, washed and cut into bite sized pieces
1/2 pomegranate, the seeds
1-2 ripe Avocado, halved, peeled and cut into long slices or bite sized pieces
salad leaves like arugula or corn salad - a handful per person, washed, and, if required, cut into smaller pieces
1 1/2 tbsp pumpkin seeds, roasted in very little olive or sunflower oil
30-40 ml pomegranate and raspberry vinaigrette
4 tsp pumpkin seed oil

Method:

• Lay the salad bell peppers, avocado and pomegranate on the plates
• roast the pumpkin seeds till they start to pop and sprinkle over the salad
  
• Drizzle little vinaigrette and the pumpkin seed oil and serve

I love this combination of pumpkin seed oil and the two fruits - raspberries and pomegranate. It is a kind of vinaigrette, which I feel goes very well with avocado, as suggested in the book as well. Since I the beginning I wasn't very sure about what all things to combine with it, I just stuck to avocado and pomegranate seeds along with the corn salad. And it was lovely! I loved the sweet and tangy pomegranate seeds in the salad, and the combination of pomegranate with raspberries in the vinaigrette. So, the next time I also added yellow bell peppers and tomatoes, as I feel they are also on the sweeter side in flavour, and used arugula leaves. I would have loved to add some roasted pumpkin seeds to it, but just didn't remember in time and then later on my two men were too hungry for me to let them wait longer. But, it is worth the effort and I love to add roasted nuts and seeds in my salads, whatever kinds they be.

I'm sending this over to the POM Wonderful Contest being held at The Leftover Queen this month.

POM Wonderful is offering attractive prizes and all the Foodie Blogroll members are eligible to take part in it. Check at the FoodieBlogroll/leftover Queen Forum for details.

Home grown radishes

Rishab was being quite wild when it came to plucking flowers and leaves all the time. I thought that I might help him develop a little bit more sensitivity towards plants, if I let him sow the radish seeds I wanted to sow himself. Though I know he is quite young (3 years) and I keep hearing from mothers that it is normal, but I thought it was worth trying. Both Rishab and I sowed the seeds in the soil as per the instructions on the package. And now that I think of it, it seemed to have worked, at least to a certain extent.
Although we got quite a lot of radishes - about 2/3rd of all that we planted, I realised that they had not been planted deep enough. In the package they just said, 1 cm deep and I think many a times (luckily!) we sowed the seeds 2 cm deep. So, in many cases, though they grew (the leaves), the radish tuber didn't get thick and were protruding out of the soil and were thin like any other root, to our disappointment.
This was the first summers where I actually planted or sowed seeds for vegetables and I also got something at the end. Also the first time for radishes, but I think that is the easiest thing to do. Last year the slugs ate aways everything one by one, even before they could grow. This year I had sworn not to plant a single plant! :D "Why waste my energies with the bad weather here - cloudy and wet, cold and no sun, which in any case doesn't allow plants to grow", I thought.
But, come summer and the warmer days with it, and I again became optimistic about it. The last year was also a bad summer - wet, cold and little direct sunlight. These summers were again nothing so special, but good enough that I at least had some small successes, enough to motivate me to do some more gardening next year. Yipeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Yes, this is no big deal I know, when I see so many blogger gardeners doing it in a big way, but this is my very first time ever!
So, what all did I plant this year in my garden. I planted some new herbs. I already had mint, oregano and a small plant of thyme from last year, but since I chose a wrong spot to plant them, where they were always in too much of shade, they didn't like it. So, last Fall I changed their position to another well lighted spot. It helped a lot this year. I planted some more herbs -sage, another variety of mint, and a wilting pot of organic chives which I had used up (it came so well) and two different strawberries. One of them I had mentioned in my earlier post. Tomatoes, this time they grew much better than I had expected, unlike last time. And bore fruit heavily, but, now that it has become cold, they don't like it any more. And i am forced to pluck the remaining ones which are not compeletely ripe. I think I waited too long to buy and plant them. It was a very spontaneous decision when i saw them and couldn't resist buying them. Don't know if it makes sense to buy a small glass house for it next year, if it will keep the tomatoes warmer. I realise that they don't like it wet and cold at all. well, time will tell. I am learning so much with such small experiments. And the best thing is the only fertiliser I used was this organic horn and hoof chippings /meal (German: Hornspäne) which help enrich the nitrogen content of the soil and is allowed for organic farming under the EU law.
But, I also have to mention that I actually had also bought zucchini seeds (or was it cucumber, I had cucumber seeds too) and wanted to plant them too. I had sown them in small pots in the house in Spring time. It was almost summers and after two weeks and already about 18-20 °C outside, I thought that I might as well transfer the seedlings outside. But, as it looks like, they got a climate shock and all wilted one after the other, to my big disappointment. That I didn't even bother to plant the other set of seeds (either cucumber of zucchini). Will have to check that in the packets I still have.
But, whatever, next year I will surely do some more sowing and planting and see what I get.
So, here is my humble recipe for a simple salad which we ate as a side with Italian dressing (oliveoil, white wine vinegar or lemon juice, salt and pepper, ad i also added some dijon mustard) which everyone added to his own salad bowl at lunch. I think key to a good sald is the dressing, which again depends on a good vinegar, which makes a world of difference in the taste. So, it is worht it to use natural vinegar, any kinds one likes. Some of my favorites are white wine vinegar - a lot of times flavoured with different herbs, sherry viengar, balsamico - white and dark, apple cidre vinegar. Right now I bought one flavoured with elderberry (Sambacus) must, a sweet and mild one - tastes good.
For the salad, I just cut up some cucmber and organic Iceberg from the local market, and radishes and chives from my own garden. The radishes were especially tasty. Spicy and pungent that my son found it hard to eat them! It was a totally new taste for him. I have noticed that here in the market you also get spicy radishes, but only during summers. I'm sending this to Grow Your Own event initiated by Andrea and taking place this fortnight (1st to 15th Oct.) at Maria's A Scientist in the Kitchen.

Couscous salad

Easy to make.
Cook couscous in water (do not soak) with salt till done.
Soak chickpeas overnight and change water a couple of times before cooking it in a pressure cooker (is much faster) for about 10 minutes with salt and turmeric.
Clean the Mushrooms with a wet paper towel and cut into halves or quarter and fry in the pan in olive oil with onion, grated garlic and ginbger. Add coriander powder, turmeric, salt.
Once done mix with couscous.

Salad: I used lamb's lettuce (corn sald)-German: Feldsalat, avocado, tomatoes, spring onion, the round red radishes and an oliveoil-lemonjuice dressing (vineagrette) to which I also added roasted cumin powder.
We ate it with joghurt.
Despite the cuscous being a bit too sticky it tasted good to me.
Warning!: It was not appreciated so much by my family. So, I'll have to try out something new next time.
I still don't know how people make the couscous so that it does not turn sticky. Maybe I should add the couscous after the water starts boiling, just like with pasta. Or I took too much water.

Tips:
1. Bulguar can also be used instead of couscous.
2. Precooked (canned) Kidney beans instead of chickpeas would have made a good combination with it as well. (I have previously tried a recipe with Bulguar, ehich also does not turn so sticky somehow)