December 31st- Pomegranate Salad

My red pears are finally ready to eat.  Perhaps a bit too soft.  So I decided to look for a vehicle in which to eat the pears.  A salad.  I just happened to have, approximately, all the ingredients.  I see that as "good luck".  Lovely way to begin the New Year.  Or end the Old Year.

Edit:  I made the salad and found it too sweet.  Perhaps it does need the tart, crisp apple to be successful.  If I make it again, I will add more cabbage, I didn't add the full 2 cups.  And just vinegar and olive oil.  No honey.

Winter Chopped Salad With Pears, Pomegranate and Apple

4 cups chopped Romaine lettuce
2 cups chopped (sliced) red cabbage
1 Fuji Apple, cut any way you want
1 Pear, any way you want
1/2 cup Pomegranate arils (seeds)

The dressing is 1/2 cup red wine vinegar, 1/2 T honey and 1/4 cup good olive oil.

I don't have red cabbage nor an apple.  So I will be using green cabbage and 2 pears.  I do have Pomegranate arils in the fridge.  I bought a pomegranate and cut it in half and then turned it cut side down over a bowl in the sink (splash back) and beat the peel side with a wooden spoon until all the arils had fallen out.  The bowl caught all the delicious juice.  Martha Stewart video.

I had intentions of dropping the arils into a cold glass of champagne.  Still might.

I digress.  Back to the salad.  A coworker has told me about an amazingly delicious salad dressing that she uses on "everything".  Equal parts of good olive oil, Balsamic vinegar and real maple syrup.  If you make this chopped salad.  Use this dressing.  Or the one up top with Balsamic and not red wine vinegar (which to me is always too sharp).  Trader Joe's has a fantastic Balsamic in the chubby 17 oz bottle.  With the nice watercolor of Tuscany on the label.

Things are going very well here.  I am eating my way through the vegetable soup, having the occasional bowl of whole milk Greek yogurt (6 oz.) with red grapefruit segments .  No aged cheese,  no deli ham, no peanut butter, no Muesli with half and half.  Now that I assess what I WAS eating I can see why the pounds do not come off.  I am making a large box of sugar free raspberry jello as soon as I hit publish.  For the sweet tooth.  I may not be thinner but I feel so much "lighter".  It could all be in my head--but who cares, really.  I live in my head so I am content with feeling "lighter".  Imagine it and it will happen.

G and I went to the 4 pm showing of Jack Reacher yesterday afternoon.  Not as much action and violence as G likes and just enough "talking" to keep me happy.  The theater parking lot was completely full when we arrived and when we left.  Our theater was practically empty.  The hallways were empty.  The lobby was empty.  Neither G nor I could understand it.  Movies overlap.  We should have seen more movie goers at some point in our visit.  All we can assume is that everyone was seeing Django.  And that it's a very long movie.