Anardana - pomegranate seeds.

Yesterday there were more pomegranates bursting open although not as many as before so  today I juiced them and made more grenadine.  I intended to keep it as a juice but for some reason today's batch was much sharper than before, same tree so no reason to be different but it was,  so now we've a litre bottle in the fridge alongside the others.

Some friends were here Tuesday afternoon to use the mill that we have borrowed - they needed to crush some barley, I think to make beer with.  They also have pomegranates but instead of throwing the seeds away, dry them and use them.  So off to google I went today and came up with this little lot. 

Pomegranate seeds are called 'anardana'   which comes from the Persian  anar + dana  = pomegranate + seed.   The seeds are dried, can be roasted and ground, or soaked in water then used in cooking, in Indian cuisine, for chutneys, in granola style bars, on salads  and many other things.  Loads of recipe ideas out there, this one looked especially delicious and will probably be one of the first we try - partly because the name of the blog caught my eye....sinfully spicy.    There is information plus a list of culinary uses on this site   plus  65 recipes using the seeds.  Might have to dry some more!

Not sure how long they will take to dry at the moment as we are having a wet and sometimes blustery day  and the forecast is wet for tomorrow as well.  No point putting them outside in the dryer as there isn't any sun to warm it up.  If it was cold as well then we'd have the woodburner alight and I could dry the seeds near it but  as yet we haven't needed it as it's not cold indoors.

Normally by November we've some sort of heating in the evening, maybe a gas fire on for a couple of hours or the woodburner but the house hasn't yet lost all it's stored summer heat.  A few more damp drizzly days will do it though - especially as today it's only been 14° outside (forecast of 12°)  and they reckon on a high of 9° tomorrow.