5-Ingredient Pear Pomegranate Salsa

Every year around Christmas my entire family gets together to celebrate. And I do mean the entire family. There about 25 of us all in the same house having good food, good wine, and good (though occasionally maniacal) company. That is a lot of people to feed so everyone brings a dish or two and we leave the diets at the door and just pig out. Though we are a close knit family we all lead very different lives in very different places so we don't all enjoy similar foods. I, for instance, won't touch condiments. Ketchup, mayo, ranch, BBQ sauce...none of it and I don't particularly enjoy meats all that often.
So for this Christmas I wanted to take something fresh and festive. The recipe I decided on was 5- ingredient pear pomegranate salsa.

5-INGREDIENT PEAR POMEGRANATE SALSA

This pear pomegranate salsa rocks the savory and sweet combo, and calls for just five ingredients!

PREP: 10 MINS TOTAL: 10 MINS

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 fresh pears (any kind), cored and diced
• 1 fresh pomegranate, seeded (see my tutorial on how to open and de-seed a pomegranate http://www.gimmesomeoven.com/how-to-open-and-de-seed-a-pomegranate/)
• half a red onion, diced
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro leaves
• juice of half a lime

DIRECTIONS:

Toss all ingredients together until combined. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Serve immediately, or store in a sealed container for up to 2 days.

This recipe held a lot of promise for me. The mix of the bright red pomegranate seeds and red onion with the green pears and cilantro it was bound to be brilliantly colored and they are all flavors I really enjoyed. 

Since the directions stated that the salad could be kept in a sealed container for up to two days I went ahead and made it the night ahead of time. This is also one of those few instances when I made a recipe exactly as the directions stated. That really does not happen often what so ever. 

I was really excited about this recipe. It sounded like it would taste crisp and clean and have a nice meld of flavors. But, I was disappointed. Overnight the pears got incredibly mushy and everything had turned red from the pomegranate seeds. Instead of looking bright and festive it kind of looked like a pile of reddish mush. The flavors were less than fabulous as well. They just didn't work together. You could hardly taste the pears, even if you could get past the mushy texture, and the red onion completely overpowered the pomegranate. I was just glad that I had also made black eyed pea salad to take as well. 

Overall, this recipe was simple and quick to make. The cost could very greatly, though, because of the season and cost of pomegranates. However the end product just fell so short of expectations. I will not be making this one again. 

(All images and recipe taken from http://www.gimmesomeoven.com/5-ingredient-pear-pomegranate-salsa/ )