“Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer
Those days of soda and pretzels and beer
Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer
Dust off the sun and moon and sing a song of cheer”
Nat King Cole
Some songs will never be forgotten, and some voices will live forever. He was singing the song in his rich, deep, baritone voice {in my head of course} as I caught sight of the sorbet in my reader. Nat King Cole had no clue, but I so knew I was going to make it soon. It sounded easy,breezy and beautiful. What I didn’t know was that I would be walking into the kitchen in the next 10 minutes and whizzing it together.If you own a food processor, or better still, a Thermomix, summer will never be better. My herb garden is absolutely thriving for some unknown reason, the first summer that I’ve had great success with growing herbs. Mint I have always had plenty of, and basil too. For the thyme, rosemary, purple basil, chives, parsley, coriander and oregano I must thank the lovely folk from Hometown Seeds, which specializes in high quality garden and herb seeds, for sending me a selection of herb seeds.I have never been so excited at seeing a lush potful of thyme and the beginnings of rosemary. The thyme is thriving, and I used it in these Strawberry Apple Crumbles here. The rosemary is looking good but will take a while to become ‘plant enough‘ to use. If you saw my overflowing patch of mint you’d turn an envious green! Every neighbour who walks by asks me for some. I often pull it out, roots and all and hand it to them to grow a patch of their own … sharing some mint love! Its a beautiful fresh herb, yet I don’t use it as often as I should.I’ve been hurriedly freezing bags of strawberries this past month as I feared they would disappear with the mercury rising; it’s touching 37C these days. Yet strangely enough, the prices have come down, and the quality improved! Lush, red strawberries are still flooding the market, so what better way to celebrate than to use my frozen berries and make this beautiful sorbet.This sorbet changed the way I look at mint, and makes me guard my mint patch a little more. The frozen delight tantalizes the palette and is bowl licking good … oh-so-refreshing!! I made the recipe from what I remembered reading, which in my case meant that ingredients changed along the way. Proves a point that the memory isn’t as good as it used to be!I added juice of a lime instead of the vanilla extract {I could have sworn I read lime and not extract …sigh!}, and I didn’t register the food colour. Just as well that I didn’t because the natural colour in itself is tantalizing… as was the taste. I urge you to go and buy and freeze strawberries, and whip up this fabulous, no fat delight which makes you welcome summer with open arms. Oh the colours and oh the flavours … A D D I C T I V E!!I had a wee bit that I saved up to pair with chocolate macarons I made for this month. Our theme for April at MacTweets is CHOCOLAT! This month of April, the MacKitchen is being devoted to chocolate. Chocolate Macarons are taking over! Jamie & I called for you to create something sensational, surprising, unique, something beautiful, delectable, tantalizing, something worthy of a Mac Attack using chocolate.Pair it with a novel ingredient which will add texture or flavor or color, something, anything which will accentuate, complement the chocolate flavor and make for one spectacular mac! These chocolate macaron shells paired with a sweet/tart strawberry fresh lime sorbet screamed summer, tantalizing, sensational and delectable.
Do you want to join Jamie and me making MACARONS??
If you do, you are most welcome to join the ‘Attack’. You can find all the information at our dedicated macaron blogMacTweets. The rules for can be foundhere. You can always join this month, or the next if you like. Just drop us a mail or tweet.
What better way to welcome the dreaded HOT days of summer. This is a natural and sensational sorbet to beat the heat. It is fresh and exciting, and a wonderful way to use summers bounty. My mint patch is overflowing and I loved that I could add fresh mint to the strawberries.
Ingredients:
450gms frozen strawberries, thawed at room temperature for twenty minutes {for TM, use straight from the freezer}
1/4 cup minced mint leaves {for TM, no need to mince}
2/3 cup sugar or honey {reduce if the strawberries are sweet. Mine were tart}
Juice of 1 lime
Equipment:
Thermomix or food processor
Method:
Combine all ingredients in the bowl of the Thermomix {speed 10 / 20seconds, use spatula to stir} or a food processor and process until smooth.
Transfer to the freezer, if necessary, to harden, or serve immediately. Garnish with sprigs of fresh mint.
YIELD: about 1 pint. TIME: about 5 minutes. NOTE: Depending on the sweetness of your berries, you may wish to adjust the sweetener or omit it entirely.
Copyright Deeba@Passionate About Baking
