I’m baa-aack! I know, it’s been way too long since I posted anything on this here blog thing.
Those of you who’ve bellyached about the lack of HHH in their lives have heard this before: I’ve been busy! Busy with work, busy making glass things, busy traveling to NYC, busy raising a boatload of money for Public Glass. I was been so busy that I had become estranged from my kitchen. My appliances weren’t speaking to me. They felt left out because I was spending all my time with the microwave. It was scandalous.
Well last weekend, I decided we all needed to hold hands and sing Kum-Ba-Ya, so I busted out the ice cream maker and turned out a batch of Pink Grapefruit sorbet.
Now, one thing you should know: making frozen treats is a precarious act for me. It is fraught with the possibility of emotional devastation and self-ridicule. It’s a crapshoot, a shot in the dark. Why is this, you ask? I don’t know if it’s my crappy Cuisinart ice cream maker or something I’m not doing right, but sometimes the custard just refuses to thicken up. That damn machine can whine and whine and whine all it wants, but no matter how much I get my hopes up, no matter how much I try to will its success, there’s a 50% chance that the unfrozen slop will just get dumped down the drain and I will storm out of the kitchen in a huff. (yeah, I know, I’m probably doing something wrong. Whatever.)
Luckily, my track record with sorbet is nearly perfect (except for the Splenda Debacle, but we won’t go into that). And this recipe in particular is one of my favorites, sweet, tangy, very refreshing. Perfect for a summer day… at least in parts of the world where you actually do have a summer, unlike the arctic tundra that is San Francisco.
The original recipe is from Deborah Madison’s “Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone,” but I made some tweaks. I found her version to be a little too tart; I think mine is just right.
Pink Grapefruit Sorbet
1 Tb finely grated grapefruit zest
3 cups pink grapefruit juice (3 or 4 ruby grapefruits)
Juice of 1 lemon
¾ cup sugar
½ cup water
Special equipment: ice cream maker.
Pour the juices into a bowl, add the zest. Put the sugar and water in a saucepan and simmer, stirring until the sugar is completely dissolved. Remove from heat and pour the syrup into the juices. Cover and chill for several hours (overnight works too – must be good and cold before placing in the ice cream maker). Just before placing in the ice cream maker, pour the mixture through a fine strainer to remove the zest and any pits and pulp. Process in your ice cream maker until the sorbet reaches the desired thickness. Once its reached proper consistency, pour into airtight containers and freeze. (Note: do NOT fill the containers all the way to the top; leave room for the sorbet to further expand as it continues to freeze.)
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