Sunny Sunday

Sunday morning and there’s sun outside.  It’s a bloody miracle!!   The past couple of weeks have been rather dreary.  It seriously felt like Vancouver outside but minus the gorgeous mountains and the coolness factor.  But today, it’s sunny.  Check it out!

Sunny Sunday. Deck is built, sod is down. Finally, A YARD!

Hopefully this will be a sign of the summer that I know Winnipeg used to be known for:  dry and really hot.  Though for the past 5 years at least, the humidity seems to have increased quite a bit and the clouds seem to be greyer than my childhood.  Then again, maybe when I think of my youth I’ve got my rose-tinted glasses on.

What would be great to beat the summer heat?  [If it actually even reaches our little, prairie city..]

Well, you can never beat the deliciousness of homemade iced treats.  I finally picked up David Lebovitz’s Perfect Scoop.  And it is amazingness.  My Williams-Sonoma Frozen Desserts is a good platform, but Perfect Scoop takes it to an entirely different level.  ~  Friends of ours came to visit en route to a flight to Ottawa on Friday.  They have a son, Landon who has a ton of allergies of which lactose was the main one I remembered.  Now everyone loves a little dessert now and then, but what to do when allergies come into play?

I decided that I would make a raspberry sherbet but instead of using milk, I opted for almond milk.  And it was a great substitution.  So great that Bob had no idea that the sherbet was vegan!  HA! HA! HA!  In your face Bob.  (Sorry, just had to put that in there.)

This picture does not do the sherbet justice. It also reminds me of how crappy and limiting my camera is.

The colour of this sherbet is absolutely gorgeous and the taste is the best of lucious, summer raspberries in frozen form.  I will admit that I used frozen raspberries *GASP!*  because it’s what I had on hand.  Also, using frozen raspberries allowed the mixture to freeze much faster in the ice cream maker canister than usual.  So I would suggest if you have more berries than you can shake a stick at, freeze them and make sherbet at your leisure if that’s what you choose to do.

Raspberry Sherbet adapted from David Lebovitz

• 454 g fresh or frozen raspberries
• 2 cups unsweetened almond milk
• 1 cup sugar (I found 1 cup too much, I think you can probably get away with 2/3s of a cup)
• 1 1/2 tsps freshly squeezed lemon juice

With a blender or food processor, blitz the first three ingredients until smooth.  Strain out the seeds and then add in the lemon juice.  What’s great about this recipe is that you don’t have to wait several hours for the flavours to meld, you can just throw it into your ice cream maker right after you’ve added the lemon juice.

And if you don’t have an ice cream maker, pour mixture into a metal cake pan and freeze until almost solid; about 1.5 hours, then break up and puree in food processor.  Scrape into airtight container and freeze until firm about 4 hours.

And what kind of treat for cosmopolitan ladies?

Martinis!  I whipped these up for Teri and I for our steak dinner.  It’s not heavy on the booze but you can definitely up the ante if you want.

Lychee-Passionfruit Martinis (serves 2)

• 2 oz vodka (wish I had Grey Goose on hand…. :/)
• 2 oz lychee liqueur (we used Soho)
• 4 oz passionfruit juice
• Optional ~1.5 oz lychee syrup (from canned lychees) or lychee juice; it just adds more sweetness because I like my cocktails fruity and boozy.

Fill a cocktail shaker up with about 7-8 ice cubes.  Add in your liquids, shake and pour into martini glasses.  Garnish with lychee or passionfruit seeds if you have ‘em.

Summer colours for your belly.  Enjoy ;)  xoxo