Chocolate Pomegranate Cookies

8 pomegranates for $1!  Heck yes!

I am the first to tell you that I do not like fruit and chocolate together - Wolverine thinks I am some kind of impostor of a woman because I just can't stomach it.  Ugh.  Chocolate covered cherries, strawberries, bananas, pineapple, apples....I can't even eat banana splits - that chocolate infects everything.

No, thank you, I do not want to try the 300th type of fruit with chocolate, because seeing as how I am grown woman, my experience with the other 299 tells me that I am not going to like it.  I can't even handle a banana in a chocolate protein shake unless the flavor is hidden by GOBS of peanut butter.  I think it is genetic seeing as how Hit Girl is the same way.  ;)

So, I made these cookies for Wolverine and Ze-Ra knowing I wasn't going to like them...no big deal, I do that stuff all the time.  But the smell was so good I just had to sneak a bite, and then another....

I think the arils of a pomegranate count as fruit, and if that is the case, then I have found a fruit that I like with chocolate!! :)  Thank you Mavis!

Apparently the 300th fruit does taste good with chocolate.  When crow tastes this good, I'm asking for seconds. ;)

Chocolate Pomegranate Cookies

What's In It:

1/2 c butter

1/2 c crisco

3/4 c white sugar

3/4 c brown sugar

2 eggs

1 t vanilla

2 c flour

3/4 c cocoa powder

1 t baking soda

3/4 t salt

1 c pomegranate arils

What To Do With It:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  

Remove the arils from the pomegranates.  I wore gloves to prevent staining my hands and I recommend an apron or dark clothing.  Cut the pomegranate in half and then turn upside down over a strainer set inside of a bowl and squeeze like you would juice a citrus.  Most of the arils and the juice will be released.  Turn the skin inside out and pick out the remaining arils.  You will have to pick through the arils in your strainer to remove any of the fibrous inside of the pomegranate that comes out with the seeds. I needed 2 pomegranates to get enough arils (Save the juice...it is delicious!) 

With your mixer, cream the sugars, butter, crisco, eggs, and vanilla.

In a seperate bowl combine flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt.  Mix into the egg mixture.  

Mix in the arils by hand.

Bake on a lined cookie sheet for 10-12 minutes.  Cool for a minute or two on the sheet before transferring to a cooling rack.  

Is anyone else as excited as I am that I have enough pomegranates to make 3 more batches of these cookies?! :)