Frozen Raspberry Yogurt Popsicles

When I was a little girl I remember going to U-Pick farms with my mother, grandmother and sister. We picked strawberries, tomatoes, and all sorts of other goodies.

Once we got them home we'd freeze, can, and dry everything at the peak of its freshness so we could enjoy it all year long. My grandmother's pantry in Eastern Washington was a veritable cornucopia of canned and preserved goods. She had everything one could pack in a jar – apricots, beets, onions, green beans, peaches, pears, cherries – even elk meat! The list seriously goes on for a while.

My mother took it one step further and dried foods in addition to canning some. She made the best fruit leather under the sun (Sun...get it?! Dried..sun...never mind.)

Now that I am (according to the government at least) an adult, I haven't been to a U-Pick farm in ages. So, when a friend invited me to tag along for the day I couldn't resist. We picked raspberries, black raspberries, and beets. Having spent the early portion of my life on a defunct raspberry farm, I was eager to gather a haul to bring home to preserve.

Sadly, I forgot just how unpleasant it can be picking fruit in a field all day and that I have very limited space for preserving anything for an extended period of time. So, I limited my picking to just what I could use in the next week or two. When I got home I flash froze half by washing them and laying them out in single layer on a parchment lined baking sheet and freezing them solid. Then I tossed them in a zip-top bag and they're perfect for last minute smoothie additions.

The other half I turned into frozen yogurt popsicles. Considering the ridiculous heat wave we've had in the DC area and the recent storm knocking out our electricity, I was thankful to have something cool and refreshing in my freezer with which to chill out.

Frozen Raspberry Yogurt Popsicles

32 oz nonfat plain Greek yogurt

8-12 oz fresh raspberries, rinsed

½ cup organic sugar

Mix all ingredients together. Freeze in popsicle molds. Dip the popsicle mold in warm water to loosen. Remove from popsicle mold. Enjoy.  

Grapefruit-Champagne Sorbet

I’m not generally a fan of frozen treats. I have very sensitive teeth and the coldness of ice creams, sorbets, and popsicles is usually rather painful.

There are a few notable exceptions. For some reason frozen custard doesn’t bother me, nor did some of the most amazing pistachio gelato last year in Florence. Perhaps it’s the fat content or the method of churning – I’m unsure.

Then there are frozen treats that are so incredibly delicious that I don’t care if they hurt my teeth, I just eat them slowly and carefully. This sorbet is one of those treats.

It’s like a frozen mimosa exploding in your mouth. Which, to me, sounds like bliss. The recipe is from David Lebovitz’s Perfect Scoop, which is, in my opinion, the definitive recipe book on ice creams and frozen delights.

So far I’ve made a few different things from it. I was pretty “meh” about the Watermelon Sorbetto, but the husband loved it. I adapted the Lemon Sorbet recipe to suit some fresh grapefruits sent lovingly from an aunt in Florida for Christmas, but it was pretty underwhelming – but the husband loved it. In fact, I think he ate the entire batch in about 3 days.

I’ve got a bunch of other recipes on my to-do list: Mojito Granita, Olive Oil Ice Cream, Orange-Szechuan Peppercorn Ice Cream, Rice Ice Cream…

This Grapefruit-Champagne sorbet, however, has rocked my world. The flavor of the wine is prevalent, so be warned. This probably isn’t appropriate for children or non-drinkers. The husband doesn’t drink alcohol, but he found the strong champagne flavor to be “un-offensive,” as he put it. I, on the other hand, want to take the entire container of sorbet, back myself into a corner, and growl at anyone who comes near.

Make this. Then don’t share it with your friends.

Grapefruit-Champagne Sorbet

from The Perfect Scoop

1 1/3 cups Champagne or other sparkling white wine

1 cup sugar

2 ½ cups fresh squeezed grapefruit juice

In a medium, nonreactive saucepan, heat about half the champagne with the sugar, stirring frequently until the sugar is completely dissolved. Remove from heat, stir in the remaining champagne and the grapefruit juice.

Chill the mixture thoroughly and freeze it according to your ice cream maker’s instructions.

*Notes: I didn’t use a saucepan, I microwaved half the champagne and the sugar in a large glass measuring cup a minute at a time until the sugar dissolved, stirring every 30 seconds. Then I chilled the champagne-sugar mixture, as well as the rest of the wine and the grapefruit juice. I combined them all once chilled and then put it in my ice cream maker. This worked perfectly for me and it seemed a lot easier than using the stovetop. It’s up to you.

passion fruit semifreddo

You know what I love the most about passion fruit? When the produce boy sells them to you at a steep discount because "they're all wrinkly, they must be old."

It's a beautiful thing - especially considering that last time I saw passion fruit at Whole Foods they were $2 each. Ouch.

For those of you unfamiliar with this tasty, tropical fruit, wrinkly skin is a good sign. It indicates that the fruit is ripe and sweet. A passion fruit with shiny, smooth skin is unripe. So the next time you see a store trying to get rid of their old, wrinkly passion fruits - snatch them up, my friend. Them's some good eats.

Semifreddos are an Italian dessert kind of like a frozen mousse. Instead of using the traditional churning method of most frozen desserts, the flavorful base is folded into pillowy whipped cream and frozen, usually in a mold. It's then turned out and sliced, sometimes served with a sauce.

Succinctly, they're rich, creamy, delicious, and so easy a trained monkey could make one. So make one, impress your friends, and add an inch or two to your waistline.

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Tropical Fruit Granita

One of my favorite things about wintertime is the profusion of citrus fruits. I can stuff myself day after day with navel oranges, honey tangerines, ruby red grapefruits, clementines, blood oranges - you name it, I'll eat it.

I suppose, if nothing else, I'll never get scurvy.

That being said, I found myself with a few too many fruits the other day. I had forgotten about the five pound bag of oranges I'd bought one day and came home the next with an eight pound bag. That's a few too many for our house even.

After indulging in fresh squeezed orange juice for a couple days I decided to make a navel orange sorbet. However, even though my ice cream maker attachment was frozen solid and my sorbet base was chilled thoroughly, it refused to set up. I fell back on popsicles, but even then they weren't too my liking. The navel oranges just don't offer enough in complexity of flavor to make a satisfying frozen treat. Best eaten directly out of hand, or squeezed.

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Pomegranate-Pineapple Sorbet

A few weeks ago the folks over at POM Wonderful contacted me about whether or not I would like to try some of their product. I debated on whether or not I wanted to accept free product from a company - even if they didn't explicitly ask me for a review - and eventually came to the decision that I would never post a false review about anything, good or bad, and I always disclose if I received the product gratis.

Which I did.

So, no harm no foul - right?

And since I'm sure pretty much everyone on the planet has had pomegranate juice at this point and POM Wonderful is essentially the only national commercial producer of pomegranate juice, we all know it's pretty damn good.

It tastes good, it's rumored to be the holy grail of antioxidants, and with any luck the consumption of internationally grown pomegranates will help alleviate poverty in the Middle East.(POM Wonderful only uses domestically grown pomegranates, however.)

All that is well and good, but I'm more interested in pairing the juice with pureed pineapple and taking a tropical vacation in my mouth during this cold and dreary December.

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