Pomegranate and Pine Nut Tuna Salad

It's pomegranate season! I remember the first time my husband and I tried a pomegranate. They were on sale, so we thought what the heck? We'll give it a shot. Shortly thereafter, pomegranate juice was splattered all over my husband's shirt and the walls of our little apartment. It looked like a bad version of a mock crime scene. After lots of scrubbing and cleaning and a permanently stained shirt, we swore off pomegranates for years. Finally, a friend clued me in to a great tip for opening pomegranates. Follow the link to this video.

Now that opening a pomegranate is no longer an ordeal, all I have to say is YUM! This unusual fruit adds a unique spin to many different foods. Most recently I decided to try pomegranate in tuna salad. A little weird I know, but soooooooo good!

Here my recipe for Pomegranate and Pine Nut Tuna Salad:





Two cans of albacore tuna in water, drained




2-3 heaping Tablespoons of mayo (add more or less to make it the moistness and consistency you prefer)


1 1/2 Tablespoons of pine nuts


seeds from half a pomegranate



1 teaspoon of salt (or to taste)


1/2 teaspoon of pepper (or to taste)


Mix all ingredients in a medium bowl. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes. Serve on sliced bread or with crackers.

Perfectly Toasted Pumpkin Seeds

 One of the things my family looks forward to the most during the fall season is toasted pumpkin seeds. Digging all of the glop out of the center of the pumpkin when carving jack'o' lanterns is completely worth it for a handful of these tasty treats. However, I've always felt like my toasted pumpkin seeds didn't quite measure up to my expectations, though I followed instructions from various websites to make them. A few weeks ago, I was at a going away party for one of my long time friends and another friend of hers brought toasted pumpkin seeds that were phenomenal! The following tips for perfectly toasted pumpkin seeds are gleaned from her instructions.
First, remove seeds from a pie pumpkin.The pie pumpkin seeds are smaller and tastier than those from large carving pumpkins. Soak the pumpkin seeds for 24 hours. Periodically rinse the seeds in a colander to wash off as much of the slime as possible. After the soak, drain the seeds and spread them on rimmed baking sheets. I had to put mine in a roasting pan as I currently don't own any rimmed baking sheets. The girl I talked to at the party used coconut oil and sea salt on her seeds. They were very good, but I prefer a more savory taste for my seeds, so I used olive oil and sea salt on mine. The amount will depend on how many seeds you have to toast. I used 4-5 tablespoons of oil and about 3 teaspoons of salt. I had seeds from three pumpkins, thus the large amounts of oil and salt. Stir the seeds to coat with the oil and salt.

 Toast the seeds at the low temperature of 275 degrees. It will take at least an hour to toast them. It took about 3 hours for mine to be completely toasted but I imagine using a rimmed baking sheet instead of a roasting pan would drastically cut down on this time since the seeds would be closer to the heat source in the oven. Be sure to periodically stir the seeds for even toasting while they are in the oven. They should be a nice even brown color when they are done.

Let cool or a bit and enjoy!

Fun and Simple Fall Project

My daughter has wanted to make bird feeders since she saw a bird feeder project in a book this summer. Now that November has come, despite our record breaking 87 degree day, it seemed the appropriate time to do the project. The bird feeder from the book seemed a bit complicated and more like something she'd enjoy making when she's a bit older. So, I did a quick search on the internet and found this website with a quick step-by-step for making a bird feeder out of a toilet paper roll.* The project was simple enough that my 3 year old was able to do most of it on her own, and it took a short enough amount of time that it didn't loose her attention span. We hung the feeders on our small maple tree and our mulberry tree. Hopefully some interesting birds show up soon...but, if not, at least it the project kept her busy for the afternoon.

*Note: We used a fruit and nut mix birdseed for our feeders.