The friendly people at POM Wonderful contacted me a couple of weeks ago in regards to trying their pomegranate juice. I was so excited because I love all things pomegranate but have only tried the actual juice a couple of times before (I prefer to get my pomegranate from pom flavored beer thank you very much! 🙂 )
A little about POM Wonderful from their site
Plus they have different flavors of Pom juice that I never knew about-such as mango, kiwi, blueberry, cherry and nectarine with a myriad of different products like tea, bars, iced coffee (say whaaaaa??!!?!), shots, pills and more.
I got their package on Friday and have been brainstorming what I could make with it. Yes, I could make a cocktail or green monster but I wanted to try cooking with it.
With that, I decided to make Feta, Walnut and Parsley stuffed pork chops with a creamy pomegranate sauce and a side salad with pomegranate balsamic dressing
I finally bit the bullet and bought some xanthan gum. I’ve been wanting to get these to use in my green monsters since they turn out soupy a lot of the time and to use in sauced instead of corn starch. Most recipes only call for one to two tablespoons of cornstarch so this bag is going to last me awhile!
For the stuffing, I threw in 1/3 cup walnuts, 3 tbsp of feta and a few tbsp of parsley in the food processor and pulsed on low for about 10 seconds.
I butterflied two pork chips and stuffed with the filling then secured with toothpicks. I rubbed a little extra virgin olive oil and black pepper on them and then cooked at 350 for 25-30 minutes
For the creamy sauce, I threw 1/4 cup half and half with 3/4 of a POM Wonderful bottle on the stovetop with one tbsp xanthan gum and let cook on a low setting for 10 minutes until thick and bubbly. I know it kinda looks like the River of Slime from Ghostbusters 2 but don’t fear, it was tasty!
Side salad with carrots, tomato, extra stuffing mix, quinoa topped with homemade pomegranate balsamic vinegar. I liked the dressing a lot and never knew how easy it was to make your own dressing!
This was such a fabulous, filling meal. It was nice to experiment with the POM Wonderful for a different flavor for my meals and I cannot wait to try it with more stuff—thanks POM Wonderful for sending me and giving me the opportunity to try your juice, I am loving it!
I also found the mythical Chobani Pomegrante Greek Yogurt I’ve been seeing all over the blogs lately. I’ve never seen this flavor in the store before so when I saw it this past week, I practically screamed and started doing my happy dance right in the middle of Harris Teeter!
And I got to use the free Chobani coupons I won over at Nutrition Nut on The Run so free Chobani is always nice. It was terrific! I am a bit skeptical with new flavors ever since trying Chobani’s Pineapple flavor but this did not disappoint. Thus being said, I may just turn into a pomegranate by end of day.
Fail to plan, plan to fail….yep that’s what I would say about my lunch today
Microwave popcorn-yum! I love the stuff but it is not filling at all. Oh, I didn’t mention I had this at work did I? Yeah. Another so busy week that I went in for five hours today just to catch up on my emails so I could get some peace of mind. I was annoyed by having to go in to do that but I kept repeating to myself “time and a half-pay, time and a half-pay, time and a half-pay” to make it bearable.
Oh and I know how I was singing praises to Jackie Warner and her workout dvd yesterday but today? I curse the day she was born. My everything hurts and each time I step up or sit down today, I whimper a bit. It’s sad. No pain no gain right??
I made a yummy plate of eggs topped with avocado and tabasco for breakfast.
Hey healthy fats!! Just wanted to say that I heart you.
I got a Magic Bullet for my birthday this past December and finally opened the box today to try it out with a green monster with blueberries, almond milk, baby spinach, Spiru-Tein Blueberries & Cream protein powder (half a packet), one Splenda and 1/2 tbsp of xanthan gum
Holy crap-why did I wait so long to use this? I absolutely loved how easy it was to use, quick it was and way more quiet than my blender. And xanthan gum, I just love it. It came out like sludge (which is a good thing!) this was more like an ice cream treat than a smoothie.
Happy August to everyone as well, I completely forgot its first of the month!
Things to work on for this month
*Drink less beer. I was out of control the month of July. Ok, not alcoholic out of control but drinking way more beer than I normally do due to the ridiculously hot weather out.
*Have a more consistent workout schedule each week. With moving and going on vacation twice in July, I didn’t get much workout time in. Again, add the nasty weather and it was a recipe for laziness on my part.
*Cook more at home, eat out less. Now that my kitchen is all squared away and I am somewhat getting used to cooking in a smaller kitchen, I need to get back into the swing of things.
All in all, today was a great day with work, new recipes, etc. Hope everyones August is off to an equally fabulous start!
PS—Check out Eat, Move, Love for a fun giveaway!
PPS-Anyone else have Blogger issues? I keep trying to comment on Blogger blogs and can’t, it’s a tad frustrating!
Simply Shaka 