Heat Wave

You've just got to love the weather forecasters here in Portland. We get a week's hysterical notice for any potentially dramatic weather. They've been carrying on about the coming heat wave for days but as far as I'm concerned, it's already here. I'm having a harder time with the heat this year than usual. All I want to eat is ice cream.

Unfortunately ice cream and I don't really get along. It's pretty hard on my stomach though I have been known to suffer for a good coffee ice cream. Gelato I can handle pretty well and I adore Coconut Bliss, but it's awfully spendy. Sorbet, however, goes down with no trouble at all. When I stand in front of the freezer case, there are so many tasty looking ice cream flavors and then, maybe, there's lemon sorbet. Yawn.

Luckily it's a snap to make my own sorbet. In the last few weeks we've had cherry, blueberry-banana, and nectarine, all based on the recipes in David Lebovitz' most excellent book The Perfect Scoop. Although his recipe for nectarine sorbet was simple enough, I made things even easier by cutting out one step. I opted not to cook the nectarines --I just threw everything in the blender, transferred the mixture to my trusty Donvier, and we had a lovely fresh nectarine sorbet in no time at all.

I might try this again and cook the nectarines just to see what happens, but I really love the way my raw version burts with super fresh nectarine flavor. I'm sure you'll want to have some of this tucked away in your freezer when the heat wave hits.

Printable recipe here.

Chocolate Sorbet

Does chocolate sorbet sound good to you?

I thought "eh". It sounded thin, watery, just not worth trying. But then Deb at Smitten Kitchen wrote a rapturous post about it and I've never known her to lead a reader astray in the dessert department so I gave it a try. Yum.

It's another David Lebovitz recipe from The Perfect Scoop. It's simple as can be: sugar,water, cocoa, and chocolate. No dairy. Which means that all my vegan, allergic, and kosher keeping friends should be very happy to have this recipe. It does pack a serious chocolate punch that's as good as the chocolate you choose. I'm not very fancy--Trader Joe's bittersweet Pound Plus bars do the trick for me at a fraction of what you'd pay for the fancy stuff. But I'm sure the fancy stuff would work, too.

The reprinted is recipe is here and I strongly suggest you get started making this today. It's that good.