Lemon-Pomegranate Tango

Convergence is a wonderful thing. Just yesterday I was looking at a number of the Bread Baking Babes sites to see what bread they had baked this month. Since Karen of Bake My Day is hostess this month, if you want to see what she chose, go here. While on another Babe's site I saw that Gretchen had gathered a list of upcoming food blogger events. One that had immediate appeal for me was the one celebrating lemons, particularly Meyer lemons. Since a friend recently gave me some Meyer lemons I knew I wanted to participate. Now the convergence part...a box of bottles of POM Wonderful Pomegranate juice arrived yesterday, too. If I couldn't figure out a way to combine Meyer lemons and pomegranate juice then I shouldn't call myself a food blogger!

Today for lunch the lemon and pomegranate flavors did a tango with each other resulting in a flavorful sweet-tart dressing which went really well with fresh salad greens, chunks of cooked chicken, Braeburn apple slices, and chopped walnuts.

Since I used not only the Meyer lemon juice but also the Meyer lemon zest, the dressing was bursting with crisp citrus flavor which played up the delightful fruitiness of the POM Wonderful pomegranate juice. The dressing also had freshly ground black pepper for bite, and some olive oil, plus a small amount of dried thyme. It went together quickly. Why even consider using a bottled dressing when you can put this delightful dressing together in a flash, and enjoy the goodness of pomegranate juice and the zing of fresh lemon. If you don't have Meyer lemons, use whatever lemons you have available. Be sure to include some zest and make sure to use only the colored part. After you taste the shaken dressing, you may want to adjust the amount of any of the ingredients to suit your own taste buds. I threw this together without a recipe, but it is quite likely that there are other similar recipes elsewhere.

For a further convergence, not only will I send this along to Wine Imbiber for the Lemon Lovefest event, but I'll also send it to Annie for the Grow Your Own event created by Andrea of Andrea's Recipes and hosted this month by House of Annie. The round up for Grow Your Own can be found here. I think of it as cross pollination and a way to introduce bloggers to each other...something very appropriate for this time of year. Check out these events and their participants and you may find some new wonderful blogs to visit as winter turns to spring. For the Lemon Lovefest event, you can see the round up at the Lemon Lovefest Library here.

Lemon-POM Tango Dressing

1/2 cup POM Wonderful pomegranate juice
1/4 cup olive oil
zest and juice of 1 medium Meyer lemon (or regular lemon)
1/8 teaspoon dried thyme
freshly ground black pepper to taste

In a jar or other container with a sealed lid, place all of the ingredients. Seal with lid and shake vigorously to emulsify the oil in the rest of the ingredients. Check for taste and add more pepper if needed.

Use to dress any salad that will taste good with a slightly sweet dressing. I used mixed salad greens, sliced Braeburn apples, chunks of cooked chicken and chopped walnuts.