pom-wonderful world

I recently was contacted by the lovely people at POM to see if I’d like for them to ship me a box of POM to try out. I’d honestly always been curious about POM, having heard so many wonderful things about it, but had never made it around to trying it out. So I said sure!

When I received the box, I started reading up on recipes. What could I do with the POM? At one point, I felt a cold coming on. I used POM with my Echinacea to disguise the strong flavor of the Echinacea. It wasn’t half-bad. Many of the recipes called for POM seeds as well, so I finally decided to buy a pomegranate and give one a go.

Getting Ready to Make the Glaze

I found this great recipe from Off the (Meat)Hook for a Strawberry Pomegranate Pie which looked enticing. I liked that the primary ingredients were fruits and not too much of additional sugar or other filler ingredients (although I’ll totally confess that I ended up more towards 1/2 cup than 1/4 cup on the sugar). I’d never made a glaze, so the transformation from pure liquid to glaze fascinated me. It really did thicken up. For this first shot at something like this, I went with the store-bought crust. I figured baby steps into the realm of A to Z on pies. Next time.

I’d also never cut a pomegranate. I was a little nervous, having heard they were quite messy. I didn’t find that to be the case. I also later found out this is likely because the pomegranate wasn’t ripe. Oooops. Note for next time, it should look more of a deep pinky red and not so much like a Pink Lady apple! The seeds were interesting — sort of like a sweet fruit version of corn kernels.

Strawberry Pomegranate Pie

I refrigerated the pie overnight as the recipe indicated, after slicing out one messy sliver to sample immediately (naturally). It said to let it set for four hours in the refrigerator. I noticed it set slightly more by morning, but it was not too far from it’s state the night before. When I cut a slice, it still would ooze over to the side. I made this on a Sunday evening, and had a little each day up until Wednesday, when mine turned to a runny mess. Note, I didn’t say it was not tasty, but just something to keep in mind as far as how long it might last for you. Overall, this was a really fresh dessert. It felt like I’d simply dressed up fruit, which is a nice alternative to the standard dessert.