Recipe: Salad with Apples and Pomegranate

This salad seems perfect for the season.  It is also perfect for cleaning out my fridge.  Why, you ask?  

Every week we go to my husband's martial-arts practice.  It is outdoors, on a college campus.  Every week my daughter declares herself to be hungry and every week we go to the campus convenience store to buy pre-cut apples and store-bought garlic hummus.  (Store-bought hummus - my shame knows no bounds.)  (And yes, she dips the apples into the hummus.  She is two.)  Anyway, one week it started to rain and the gentlemen decided to pack it in, and the toddler was unable to eat her snack.  The store-bought hummus still takes up more space than it merits in my fridge, as my husband will not allow me to throw it away.  The apples, likewise, took up too much space.  They are in this big old package containing quite a lot of air, and the apple slices never browned.  They were in there for a full week and they never got soft, and they never turned brown.  

I don't know where these apples come from.  I don't know what process was used to create apples that don't go brown after a week of sitting in the air after being cut.  I do know that they have the flavor of cardboard.  We will not be buying them again.  

Anyway, I needed to get rid of them, both because they were clearly undead creatures from Hell and because I am cursed with a very small refrigerator and needed to make space for actual fresh, wholesome produce.  I decided to throw them into a salad with other things to mask the lack of flavor.  The pomegranate, lettuce and lime juice worked their magic.  I don't think anyone else noticed that the "apples" were even in there.

Salad with "Apples" and Pomegranates (serves 4; approx. $1.01/serving)

1/3 very large head leaf lettuce (a bag of store-bought lettuce will be fine)

1 package Undead Apples from Hell (can and should be omitted)

Arils from 1 pomegranate

1/4 cup lime juice

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

Equipment:

• Small bowl
• Whisk

1. Combine the first three ingredients in your serving bowl.
2. Whisk the next two together in the small bowl until emulsified.  You'll know when that stage is reached.  You'll just look and say, "Oh, so that's what 'emulsified' looks like.  What an apt word."  
3. Drizzle the dressing over the salad and serve.