Pomegranate, Moroccan-style

Christmas is not Christmas without DH cooking Moroccan Tagine, from Nigella’s recipe. The key ingredient is pomegranate juice and the addition of pomegranate seeds just before serving. It has a rich ruby colour that I love and tastes sublime.

And it is the reason that our Girls love Pomegranate seeds, or jewels- as they are known in our house.

All of which takes me back to my childhood in Cyprus and eating pomegranates, freshly picked, painstakingly picking the seeds out with a pin.

The Around the World in 12 Dishes Tour is currently stopped in Morocco, so it seemed an ideal time for us to explore the pomegranate a little more.

So, we took two tubs of pomegranate seeds (don’t you love that you can buy them ready-seeded now?)

One, we put through a sieve, in an attempt to make pomegranate juice of our own. It’s rich red juice has a deep, slightly earthy flavour.

The second batch we mixed with orange zest, juice and a little cinnamon- another popular Moroccan ingredient- to make Moroccan-style Pomegranate.

So easy and delicious.

Welcome to “Around The World in 12 Dishes”. We will be taking you on a journey around the world, (loosely) following in Phileas Fogg’s footsteps, exploring 12 different countries with our children, by cooking 12 dishes with them. One for each country visited.

The world is such a wonderfully diverse and colorful place. Our children see maps, flags and books. They see postcards and maybe they see films about the world.. but let’s really bring it to life through food! Taste and smell don’t often get explored, we think this would be wonderfully fun and interesting for you and your children.

Not only is it an exciting and different way to learn about cultures, but cooking with children brings a host of benefits – from numeracy to science. How can you beat that?

Adventures In Mommydom, Creative Family Fun, Domestic Goddesque, Glittering Muffins, Here Come The Girls, Juggling with Kids, Kid World Citizen, Kitchen Counter Chronicles, Mermaids’ Makings, Montessori Tidbits, Mummymummymum and The Educators’ Spin On It have come together to help you on your food journey and will each cook a dish with our children and post about it – to help inspire you to have a go! Then go out there, cook, blog, and join in the linky fun! Check out the other great posts as well!

Around the World in 12 Dishes

We had started our journey the same way Phileas Fogg did in London, UK, and now are arriving in Rabat, capital of Morocco!

• March 4 – First country was the UK
• April 1 – The second country was Sweden
• May 6 – The third country was Russia
• June 3 – The fourth country was India
• July 7 – The fifth country was Japan
• August 5 – The sixth country was Australia
• September 2 – The seventh country was French Polynesia
• October 7 – The eighth country was Mexico
• November 4 – The ninth country was Brazil
• December 2 – The tenth country is Morocco!

How to join the fun!

• The only mandatory part is the dish, the rest is all up to you, we just thought it would be fun and more concrete to the kids as to why we are making a unusual dish.
• Cook a dish from Morocco: The goal is to explore this country through FOOD and activities if you wish. Make a typical dish (sweet or savoury) from the country with the kids, take photos and have fun!
• Typical dishes: Tajine, Briouat, Kefta, Merguez or Ma’amoul.
• Print your passport: Click here to download, comes with space for a photo of the child with the dish. Here is a little cover for it if you wish 🙂
• Color a placemat: Once colored/painted or whatever other way you want to do this, you can laminate it or put it between clear contact paper to use it over and over. Great conversation piece for you and your kids. Click here to download it.
• Make a craft: you can make a country related craft with the kids [optional!]

• Fun fact: Even though the official language is Arabic, Moroccan Arabic is so different that someone from, for example, Saudi-Arabia will hardly be able to understand.
• Share with us: Our Morocco challenge starts on November 2nd and will remain open for a year, so attach a link to your blog to enter the linky party or go to the comment section and post a photo together with what you did together with your child(ren).
• Pinterest: We will add your photos to a “Around the World in 12 Dishes” Pinterest Boards (one for the dishes, one for the crafts) you will be a great source of inspiration for everyone 🙂
• Are you a blogger? Let your fans know about the challenge and grab our cute lil’ button to share it on your blog.

<a href=”http://www.glitteringmuffins.com” target=”_blank”><img src=”http://i1145.photobucket.com/albums/o502/theeducatorsspinonit/world.jpg” alt=”Around the world in 12 Dishes” width=”125″ height=”125″ /></a>

Please check out our partner blogs and their Morocco ideas: Adventures In Mommydom, Creative Family Fun, Domestic Goddesque, Glittering Muffins, Here Come The Girls, Juggling with Kids, Kid World Citizen, Kitchen Counter Chronicles, Mermaids’ Makings, Montessori Tidbits, Mummymummymum and The Educators’ Spin On It

If you do this, we’d LOVE to see a photo of it. Email it to us or post it on our Facebook page. We’d love to do a Facebook album, a Pinterest board and a page of your creations 🙂

Please link up your Moroccan dish and/or craft in our linky below, we would love to see it!