Rice and Pomegranate Salad with Toasted Pine Nuts - This is a very flexible recipe. The items and amounts can be adjusted to what you have on hand or what you want to try. Try other grains like quinoa, other veggies or fruit. I am sure this would taste great adding a bit of feta cheese, too! Mix the following:

• 5-6 cups cooked brown rice
• 3/4 cup edamame (green soybeans) – cooked and drained, out of the shell
• 3/4 cup cooked garbanzo beans – drained (about 1/2 of a 15 ounce can – I used the other half of the garbanzo beans to make a small amount of hummus)
• 1/2 bunch of flat or curly leaf parsley – wash, drain, pat dry, then chop leaves rather coarsely either in a food processor or with your chef’s knife
• 1/2 cup toasted pine nuts (toast 4-5 minutes in your oven or toaster oven at 350 degrees – these will burn so watch carefully – oooo, they smell wonderful when toasted! Raw ones just don’t add as much interest to the salad.)

Combine the following dressing ingredients, mix well, add to the salad, and mix well.

1/4 cup olive oil, 2 Tbsp raspberry vinegar, and any pomegranate juice from cutting the pomegranate plus 1-2 teaspoons of 100% pomegranate juice

Rice and Pomegranate Salad with Toasted Pine Nuts (cont.)

Add a little salt and freshly-ground pepper to taste and mix well.

Just before serving, stir salad again to distribute the dressing, place about 1 cup onto a plate (optional - lined with whole romaine lettuce leaves) and sprinkle each salad with a small handful of pomegranate seeds (see Cook’s note below).

Cooks note – here is how I have finally ended up getting seeds out of a pomegranate without spraying my kitchen and me with juice! Cut a whole pomegranate in half on a small flexible cutting board so that any juice resulting from that cut can be easily drained into the dressing. Fill a medium sized bowl with water and place in your sink. Place one of the pomegranate halves into the bowl beneath the water. With your fingers, carefully detach the seeds from the inner white membranes of the fruit. Let the seeds sink to the bottom of the bowl. The membrane pieces will float. When done, scoop off the membrane pieces, drain the water, and put the seeds in a small covered container to be kept in the refrigerator until ready to put on the salad. I confess that I do drink some of the water so to not waste those antioxidants. I tried putting the water in our dog’s water bowl – but that was not accepted!