I love the arrival of pomegranates in the shopping markets in the fall.  I always buy one or two every year because they are pretty, and tasty; and you can even use the rinds to make an all-natural brown dye if you are into dying fabric and yarn and what-not.  What a great little fruit!

Unfortunately, my family’s pomegranate enthusiasm wanes pretty quickly about halfway through the first one.  This year is no exception.  I have a cup of arils sitting in the fridge right now, lonely and neglected.  I decided to find a recipe to use them up, so they won’t go to waste.

Most pomegranate recipes out there seem to call for juice, or crushed pulp.  Too bad for me!  You can’t get much of either out of one cup of arils!  However we do have – randomly enough – a bottle of pomegranate/cranberry juice we got for free from Safeway with our purchase of Snow White.  (No, I still haven’t figured out why, exactly!)  And while pomegranate/cranberry is not the same, I think it will work just fine for my waste-minimizing needs.

Here’s my base recipe: http://pomwonderful.com/recipes/persian-chicken-in-pom-walnut-sauce-2/

Only I have to make several changes, since my actual ingredients-on-hand are different.  Here’s my updated ingredients list.

• 1 cup Pomegranate-Cranberry Juice
• 1/4 cup arils from 1 large pomegranate
• 1 4 x 4-inch double-thick piece of cheesecloth
• 1 1/2 cups coarsely chopped walnuts
• 1 1/3 cups chicken broth
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 1 tablespoon buckwheat honey (I don’t have any molasses, but buckwheat honey is similar in flavor and consistency; I may have to add more, to balance the tartness of the cranberry juice)
• 6 pork chops
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons olive or vegetable oil
• 1/2 Spanish onion, sliced
• Hot cooked brown rice pilaf

Garnish:
• 1/2 cup arils from 1 large pomegranate