January blues

I’m not really being as ascetic as it might appear here, what with the last recipe being for vegetable soup, and now this. I was originally intending to post a cookie recipe today, until I discovered that I’d left the camera, with the memory card containing all the relevant photos, at a friend’s house over the weekend. Of course I made this discovery immediately after I ground up the last of said cookies in the food processor to put out on the snow for the birds. That’s the kind of thing that’ll give you the January blues, all right. Luckily for me, these are first world problems and, let’s face it, who doesn’t benefit from an extra serving of fruit now and again?



Winter fruit salad
I first had a version of this fruit salad long ago at a catered office lunch in Oxford. I liked it so much (it’s rare that I come across a fruit salad that doesn’t have at least one thing in it that I don’t think belongs there) that I wrote its main components down and have been tinkering with it ever since.

½ cup apple juice or cider
½ tsp cinnamon
1 green pear
1 red apple
2 kiwi
1 cup seedless red grapes
1 Tbsp sugar
2-3 Tbsp pomegranate arils

Put the cider and cinnamon in a small pan and warm on a low heat. Core and chop the pear and apple into bite-sized chunks. Peel the kiwi and do the same. Halve the grapes. Toss all of these in a large bowl, sprinkle with sugar, then add the warmed spiced cider and toss again. Sprinkle the arils over and serve.

Serves 4, with leftovers. If looking to increase the size of the salad, work on the principle that each type of fruit equals one serving and proceed accordingly.