How to Deseed a Pomegranate and a Salad of Apples, Pomegranate, Gorgonzola and Pine Nuts

Pomegranates have become so popular - they're delicious and healthy.  But they can be a pain to deseed, squirting juice everywhere and making a mess.  I'll show you how to easily clean a pomegranate and get all those seeds out.

I'm going to be posting a lot of pasta dishes this winter, so I thought I would give you a nice refreshing, light salad first!  The key to making a great salad is two things:  1) make your own dressing  and 2) only lightly dress the greens.  Salad dressing shouldn't weigh down a salad - it should just lightly coat it.  The greens and the fruit or vegetables should be the star.   The salad should be refreshing, not a soggy mess.  

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Pasta Alla Norma

There's lots of eggplant in season right now and here's the dish you want to make with it. This wonderful pasta dish is hugely popular in Sicily. It is named after Vincenzo Bellini's opera "Norma".  Bellini was a Sicilian born in Catania, where my mother went to school.  This dish is a delicious vegetarian dish, that uses a lot of the best ingredients of Sicily - eggplant, ricotta salata and basil.   And it's a snap to make. 

Most "Pasta alla Norma" recipes call for frying the eggplant, but I think roasting it is tastier and easier and doesn't take quite so much oil. 

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Two Tomato Pasta with Mozzarella, Basil & Pine Nuts

bowl is from Mystic Mud Studio in Hood River, Oregon

With all the tomatoes in the garden right now, here is great way to use some of those up.  This pasta combines two types of tomatoes - one batch that is slow roasted in the oven and another that is just cut up, fresh.  It requires no real cooking, just letting the little grape tomatoes sit in the oven for a couple of hours at 300 degrees F and then boiling the pasta.  Everything is just tossed together in the serving bowl to create a fresh summer pasta dish with a minimal amount of effort.

When buying the mozzarella, try to find the type that is packed in water and comes in tubs. It's much fresher tasting and the texture is better than the type that is vacuum sealed.

Tip:  I've also made this recipe with grape tomatoes for both the roasted and fresh.  Works great. And another great pasta for this is orrecchiete - it holds the sauce so well.

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