Pistachio Cranberry Goat Cheese Roll

This is a yummy and extremely easy 4 ingredient appetizer or hor dourve that always seems to impress. It takes all of five minutes to throw together and the flavors are very complimentary together. I often make this for New Years Eve, the super bowl, girls night, and various baby or wedding showers. You will need:

1 goat cheese log (I used a 10 ounce, any size will do, there is also often enough to do a second roll)

1 cup of shelled pistachios

1 cup of dried cranberries

honey

First crush the pistachios into pieces about the size of peas. Then put the craisins on a cutting board and chop thoroughly into very little pieces. Mix the cranberries and pistachios on a dinner plate and roll the goat cheese log into the nut mixture pressing down lightly until the goat cheese roll is covered. If your are not serving this right away, you can cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate at this point. If you are ready to serve place on desired serving plate and drizzle a fair amount of honey over the top of the roll. Serve with crackers and Enjoy!

Pomegranate Salsa

 It's December which means... It's Pomegranate Season! My dad has a few pomegranate trees at his home in Southern Utah and usually brings my sister in law and me a nice variety of Granada and Utah Sweet poms when he visits. One of my favorite fresh treats to make with our excess of lovely luscious fruit is pomegranate salsa. You will need:

1 large red pomegranate
2 large avocados diced
2 roma tomatoes diced
1/4 red onion diced
1 large lime
sea salt

First open your pomegranate and pop the arils out. That is the red seed part of the fruit. If you have trouble opening pomegranates please see my easy instructions below. Place the pomegranate arils into a medium size bowl,  add the avocado, tomatoes, and red onion.  Cut the lime in half and place in the microwave for 15-20 seconds. This allows the lime to warm up a bit and be as juicy as possible. Now squeeze both halves completely over the salsa mixture and salt to taste (a little more salt than you might anticipate). Serve with tortilla chips. Easy Peasy!

How to Easily Open a Pomegranate ~Gluten Free Madness Style:

Start by cutting off a little less than an inch off the top and bottom. Yes this will cut into a few of the arils but it the end the sacrifice of a few, blesses the many. Then score into the skin of at least one of the sections. At this point fill up a larger bowl of water and break apart the sections of the fruit under the water. At this point the larger sections of skin will float to the top. Continue loosening the arils in the water. Take out the floating skin and membrane and drain the water to reveal a bowl of perfect arils. There you go!

Petite Heirloom Tomatoes, Caprese Style with a Twist

Here in Utah we have a few big farmers markets that are well known and decently expensive but we also have a few diamond in the rough farmers markets hidden in the small suburbs or towns . Well the neighborhood where I grew up started a farmers market this past year, only in the fall and I love it. I got a nice basket of baby heirloom tomatoes for three bucks, fresh basil for a dollar, and some other great finds. After eating many of the baby heirloom tomatoes like candy I decided that I would get some fresh mozzarella and that we would do a caprese salad but at our house instead of olive oil we use balsamic and some times give a gently squeeze of a lemon on top as well. So very simply you will need:

petite heirloom tomatoes (the best kind of all :)
fresh mozzarella sliced
washed basil
sea salt
fresh ground pepper
balsamic vinegar
a small lemon half (optional)

Basically wash the tomatoes and basil, slice the mozzarella, and the cheese basil, then tomatoes on top. Finish with a gentle squeeze of lemon if you like the flavor of citrus and then drizzle balsamic vinegar and dust with salt and pepper. Simple, easy, clean snack or appetizer that screams summer is at an end and the harvest is upon us. Enjoy!