Spanking the Pomegranate

The alternative title for this post was "A Cozy Weekend in a Winter Wonderland." You can guess, for now, why I choose the title above.

Last weekend, like this weekend, Bowling Green was blanked in snow.  On Saturday, fat snowflakes gently fell for hours throughout the morning, with the sun emerging by late afternoon. We took advantage of the long weekend and the snow by walking Paco through the soft, glittering stuff, and by cuddling up. I also fully admitted to myself that I'm addicted to cooking and baked and cooked the rest of the time.

View from Our Front Porch

Early morning in the park

We did have a slight snow mishap. Having played too rough in doggy daycare the day before, Paco tore off part of the pad on his back paw. We discovered this on our first early morning foray with him and though he would have limped on forever (he has forsaken his desert roots and is a true snow baby), we turned around and hurried him home. 

Doing what I never thought I'd do (simply for how silly it seems), we bought waterproof dog booties for Paco at PetCo.  Strapping him in to those things was a trial and watching him first walk in them was like watching a scuba diver walk in flippers on dry land. He soon forgot about them as he was too absorbed with the snow.  He was also not limping! Alas, our victory was short lived. Because of our inexperience with velcroing dog booties on a dog, two of the booties soon fell off.

We compromised by putting one bootie on the injured foot and washing Paco's feet after walks (there's a lot of nasty chemicals people use during the winter here that dogs walk through).

Here's photo of the reluctant bootie recipient

 In addition to the multiple batches of cookies and other baked goods I  made, we also tried our hand with libations.  Per a cocktail recipe book Maya gave us, I made bacon-infused bourbon for a yet to-be-made cocktail called Pig on a Porch.  To make this, I poured bacon fat in to bourbon and let it sit for three days, first in a closet, and then in the refrigerator.  Then I used cheesecloth  to remove the fat from the bourbon. I've tried bacon-infused rye-whiskey before and found it tasty, so hopefully this will work out as well.

Pouring the bacon fat in to the bourbon

We also made brew! It was a longer process than anticipated, but it went better than my last attempt. The growler full of Chestnut Brown Ale is sitting in a closet now with an airlock full of sanitizing liquid. Three and half more weeks to find out if we're brew masters or not.

Stirring the malt and barley

Making dog biscuits from the spent brew grain, plus peanut butter, egg, and pumpkin puree

Javier with made-from-scratch fondue: cheddar, flour, garlic, Worcestershire sauce, and brew

French Dimpled Rolls

Finally, spanking the pomegranate is what I call a food prep technique I learned from Bon Appétit .  It's simply an effective way for removing the seeds from the fruit and it involves hitting a halved pomegranate with a wooden spoon. I employed this technique when making a fennel, quinoa, and pomegranate salad from a recipe by Yotam Ottolenghi, my new favorite chef.

Fennel salad: The crown jewel of the weekend's gastronomical delights