Rosie Enters A Pomegranate Contest.

Judy, of Judy's Kitchen blog, is having a contest. Featuring pomegranates. And the prize is a case of 6 8-oz. bottles of pomegranate juice from the wonderful folks at POM Wonderful. Unable to resist a the possibility of winning a case of pomegranate juice, I am entering the contest.

I am totally winging this with whatever I have in my fridge and pantry, making this up as I go along, so please bear with me. This is my starting point:

My ingredients, clockwise from top left: 1 cup sugar 1 cup pomegranate juice 1/2 cup cranberries 1/2 cup pecans 3 grapefruit sections 1 lime 1 apple container of my candied grapefruit (Leftover from my tuna dinner from the Alinea cookbook.) The candied grapefruit is totally superfluous. Really now, who would have candied grapefuit in their fridge? Also, instead of using grapefruit sections, you could substitute oranges sections and use orange peel. I just happened to have the grapefruit in the fridge.

In a medium sauce pan,

I mixed 1 cup pomegranate juice with 1 cup sugar. Stir to dissolve sugar.

Then I added 1/2 cup cranberries.

I chopped the grapefruit into small pieces and added them to the pot.

I peeled my lime and added limes pieces to the mix.

Because I had it, I added in about 1/4 cup of grapefruit-seasoned simple syrup.

Then a few strands of the candied grapefruit went in. Now if you had oranges on hand, you could peel an orange and add that in instead of the grapefruit peels.

As I said at the beginning, I'm making this up as I go along. I decided it needed 1/2 cup honey.

Then I was truly inspired and came up with the perfect ingredient to bring it all together. I added in 1/8 cup balsamic vinegar.

1/2 cup raisins

I brought everything to a simmer and just let it barely simmer until the mixture was reduced by half.

About an hour later.

This took about two hours.

I wanted a little apple flavor in my sauce, but I waited until the sauce had reduced before adding the chopped apple bits, since I didn't want applesauce.

What the heck. I threw in the peel and the core for flavor. I'll fish them out at the end.

Apple bits went in.

This is looking and smelling gooooood.

I peeled some lemon, chopped, and added that in my sauce for a little brightness.

Why not add some mint in?

I chopped just a few mint leaves.

And I added the mint in. I didn't want it to be overpowering. I just wanted to get a minty mouthful every now and then. You regular readers know how much I like my flames and flare ups, so, of course, I had to add in some Grand Marnier, just 1/4 cup. Probably should have added more to get a better flame, but whatever. It's all good. Check out the video here. Lastly, I added in 1/2 cup pecans. And my Pomegranate/Cranberry Sauce is ready. You could use this on either pork or chicken and I'm making chicken.

First I rinsed off my breasts. Well, not mine ... The chicken's.

Patted dry and added salt and pepper.

Lemon slices, onion slices, and 1 cup of orange juice.

And why not add in some honey?

Dot with butter and it's ready to go into a 350 degree oven.

Here's my pretty Pomegranate/Cranberry sauce.

My chicken with pomegranate/cranberry sauce over top. Rice with roasted carrots. I have to say, this sauce is quite good. You can basically taste all the fruits in it and it's tempered by the honey and the balsamic vinegar. I can imagine this being excellent as an accompaniment to pork. Shoot, this would be good on a bagel with cream cheese, or even a piece of toast. Send me my case of pomegranate juice!