I'm pushing the pomegranates these days which means I'm also de-seeding my fair share of this beautiful little fruit of health. Antioxidants! Vitamin C! We are on day number "it's been so long I've lost track" of Birdy's fever/flu/cranky/mama's losing her mind sickness. I actually saw a glimmer of health from her today, so I'm cautiously hopeful. But everything you hear and read these days says this winter is a doozy for sickness. So we're amping up the goodness in the food department.

I've always been kind of intimidated by pomegranates. All that pith inside. Those pockets of seeds that I couldn't figure out how to get to. But I've finally come up with a good system for de-seeding them and removing all those packages of crunchy goodness hiding inside.

So here you go!

First, cut the pomegranate from stem to stem, top to bottom.

Take one of the halves and turn it over in your hands so the open side is facing down. Gently apply pressure with your thumbs to the outside of the pomegranate. The purpose of this is to loosen and crack some of the pith and membranes inside. Don't go too crazy, just losen. You'll do this a few more times as you go along and feel pockets of seeds that are still stuck.

With the pomegranate half face-down in your hand, hold it over a bowl. Now, with a wooden spoon smack of the back of the fruit. (Can you say, therapy?) You'll begin to feel the seeds fall out between your fingers into the bowl. Woohoo! You may get a few bits of white membrane, but they're easy to pick out.

If you turn the fruit over and see pockets where the seeds are still stuck, you can gently press and crack on these spots again with your thumbs. And then turn it over to smack them with the wooden spoon again.

(See that slice in the fruit? That's what happens when you multi-task while de-seeding. You {almost} cut it the wrong way.)

You won't get every single seed with this method, but you will get practically all of them. (The picture below is how mine looks after a good whopping with the wooden spoon. Almost all the seeds have come out!)

You can either pick at the remaining seeds that are hiding, or if you're really nice, you can toss it to your chickens and boost their immune systems, too. I chose the latter.

Side note: keep that wooden spoon handy and smack away little hands that dip in the bowl too many times. Kidding. Sort of.

So, how do you eat your pomegranate seeds? We're pretty much a "straight from the bowl" family, but I also like them on salads and just discovered adding them to my yogurt. Yum!