La granada

or as it's more commonly known, the pomegranate.  The fruit is included in Granada city's coat of arms and  one of the gates to the Alhambra is called the Gate of the Pomegranates.  It appears all over the city in one form or another, laid into paving using tiny stones, on the tops of the posts at the side of the road.....

October is the time when ours start to split, usually after the rains have come.  I read that the rains cause them to swell just that bit more and then they burst open, a lovely dark ruby red inside.  Messy to de-pip  (if that's the right word)  no matter how careful you are some of the juices spray everywhere  so I now do them into a bowl of water.  The papery layer that the juice sacks are covered with then float to the surface and are easily scooped off.  You don't want that layer to go in with the juice as it's very bitter tasting.

There were 16 ripe pomegranates on the tree  this morning so I thought I'd better pick them before the birds got  to them.  What seemed like ages afterwards I finally had a large bowlful of juicy red arils (thanks wikipedia - not seeds at all)

They went into the liquidiser, then I strained the resulting juices off into a pan,  1.6 litres of deep red juice. 

For a change this time we thought we'd make grenadine which is a syrup of pomegranate juice.  You need to add an equal amount of sugar to the juice, bring it to the boil, simmer for about 10 minutes till it's syrupy, cool and bottle.  End result today, 3 bottles of grenadine. 

on the left, yesterdays marrow waiting to be cooked

Next stop,  online recipes to see what else to use it for.  Primarily it's for drinks, be they alcoholic or not.  This site has it listed as an ingredient for 583 drink recipes!   Also lovely mixed with lemonade, tonic or sparkling water as a refreshing summer drink  and  then I found it recommended as a glaze for pork, duck and chicken,  poured over icecream, and as a pancake syrup amongst other things.

Something for everyone!