Tipsy Peach Sorbet

Applying the scientific method to my sorbet recipes is turning out to be quite fun. It's taking my natural inclination to tinker with a recipe and applying rigor to it. First up was peach sorbet. From my initial review of sorbet recipes I gleaned that the key components were:

• The pureed fruit
• Simple syrup, the ratio of sugar to water varies across recipes
• Anti-freezing agent: either alcohol or corn syrup

Here's the recipe we tried for our first experiment together:

Peach Sorbet

2 cups pureed strained peaches (About 16 medium size peaches)

1/2 cup 1:1 simple syrup

2 T peach brandy

To puree the peaches: Boil a pot of water. Plunge the peaches in the boiling water for 1 minute. Remove peaches from the boiling water and plunge into a bowl of ice water.

Remove the skins, which should now slip off easily. Chop the peach and put the peach pieces into a food processor, like a Cuisnart. Blend the fruit until it is pureed. Strain the fruit through a mesh sieve to remove any pulp. Measure out 2 cups of pureed strained fruit. Use any remaining puree for another purpose. Set aside.

To make the Simple Syrup: Put one cup of water in a pot. Bring to a boil. Add one cup of sugar. Stir until dissolved. Keep on the heat for 30 seconds, then remove.

We actually made three iterations of simple syrup, each with increasingly less sugar. The first was 1 cup water to 1 cup sugar. The second was 1 cup water to 1/2 cup sugar. The third was 1 cup water to 1/4 cup sugar. For the peach sorbet, we went with the 1:1 ratio but used only 1/2 a cup of it. The other syrups went into the fridge to await future gigs.

To make the peach sorbet: Combine the pureed peaches, simple syrup and peach brandy in a freezer-proof bowl. Place the mixture in the fridge until it is cooled. Once cooled, remove from the fridge and pour the mixture into your ice cream maker. Follow the instructions of your ice cream maker. For ours, which is a KitchenAid attachment, I blend it for 11 minutes. Then put the mixture back in the bowl, cover it, and put it in the freezer. Allow the sorbet to "ripen" for at least 4 hours. 

Tasting notes: The levels of sweetness and peachiness were perfect. I personally didn't like the taste of the brandy. The brandy was not subtle, and this could be a cousin of our holiday Sweet Potato Tipsy. I'm curious to try the corn syrup in replacement of the brandy in the next iteration. The Husband thought it was delicious already.

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin muffins

Having chocolate for breakfast is a treat. And when you're 3 the only way to request chocolate for breakfast is to ask for it in the form of pumpkin chocolate chip muffins. I make these with some frequency because Rutabaga requests them, and I rationalize that they are a delivery method for pumpkin. I am a big fan of recipes from the Post Punk Kitchen. Her recipes are vegan, yet made with real ingredients, not just soy replacements for other ingredients. We make The Best Pumpkin Muffins.

My edits to the recipe are to reduce the sugar to a scant 1/3 cup and to delete the nutmeg. I also use vanilla oat milk instead of soy milk.

How to freeze basil for pesto

Pesto is one of my favorite foods. I love basil so much that if there was a basil cologne I would buy it for the Husband to wear. Now that's a lot of love.

Here's how I enable us to eat pesto year round:

1) Buy a bunch of basil or grab some off a plant outside. Take all the leaves off the stems and wash the basil. Give it a spin through the colendar to remove most of the water.

2) Measure out how much basil you have, then adapt this ratio from the Joy of Cooking - 2 cups of basil : 1/2 cup olive oil - to the amount of basil you have. For example if you have 3 cups of basil, you'll mix 3 cups basil + 3/4 c oil, or alternatively 1 cup basil to 1/4 c oil. Pulse the basil and oil in a Cuisinart for about 30 seconds or until the basil is finely chopped, but stop before it turns to paste. 

3. I have repurposed this baby food container for pesto, although an ice cube tray would work just fine also. Spoon in the basil-oil mixture into your freezer container, then freeze for minimum 12 hours. Once these are frozen, pop them out into a plastic bag and store them in the freezer.

4. When you're ready to make pesto. Pull out a hunk of basil-oil. Defrost it until it's liquid again. Put it into the Cuisinart, along with a clove of garlic, a small handful of pine nuts, salt and pepper. Add 1/4 cup of Parmesan cheese if desired. Pulse all together. Add oil to thin out to desired consistency. Enjoy on pesto chicken mozzarella subs.

Beet Cupcakes

Written Sunday night:

We've been on vacation for a week now, and by today everyone has settled into a rhythm. It's not the same rhythm made from the 60-hour beast of work, but instead it's something that's more familiar and intimate with each other. Today we made the vegan beet cupcakes. It was after a full on melt down from the Rutabaga, which I think was really him trying to say, "Mom, I don't want to share your attention. Can we just stay home and not go see friends today?" but it didn't come out of his mouth in quite such a coherent, direct way. So, we stayed home, played some Go Fish, and then decided to make cupcakes. These were on my mind to make, and the beets were roasted and ready to go.

The best part of it was that in the middle of the process I decided to let go of the need to minimize the mess. I stopped myself from saying things like, "but doing it that way will be really messy, so don't." Instead I opened up to letting him explore and create. From this, I watched as he took the measuring spoons and used them to spoon the batter into each cupcake liner. Drips, drops, splatter. Didn't matter. He was a digger moving the batter into the cupcake tin. It made my heart sing to watch his confidence and coordination as he filled the wells and figured out which needed more batter. Then he tried to lick the spoon before the bowl was empty. It was a good instinct, the batter was tasty.

The mess was easy enough to clean up and I feel like it was a good life lesson to take back from vacation with me. Let in the mess and the exploration more, sometimes you may even get sprinkles at the end.

Postscript: The cupcake's crumb was excellent. It was moist and spongey, which is rare for a vegan cupcake. The flavor was good, but slightly bitter in that way that unsweetened chocolate can be. I thought they were interesting and unusual, but I don't think that I will make them again. Although I am still staring down a full tupperware of roasted beets, so I might still. 

Recipes I'm thinking about making

Here are a couple recipes I'm thinking about making:

Fudgy Vegan Beet cupcakes - Do I dare adulterate a perfectly good cupcake with beets?!

Summer squash hash browns - Anything to have another excuse to use my waffle maker.

Radish Greens with Breadcrumbs - Next week maybe I'll try saving these greens from the compost pile and cook them instead.

These recipes were all discovered via pinterest.

Strawberry Popsicles

Some of those 8 quarts of strawberries have been reconstituted into Strawberry Popsicles! We're waiting for the Rutabaga to wake up from his nap to try them. I can't wait!

Strawberry Sorbet

In the last 24 hours I've made two batches of strawberry sorbet. The first batch was from here. Delicious, but too sweet for The Husband. Today in paying more attention to the taste of a strawberry, I realized that the flavor of a strawberry is not overwhelmingly sweet, its actually just a touch sour. I needed to make a sorbet that reflected this balance of flavors and wasn't overwhelming sweet. I tinkered with this recipe next. I used basically their list of ingredients, the process from the first recipe, and reduced the sugar down to 1/2c. The second batch of sorbet is still "ripening" in the freezer, but I just snuck a bite. I think we're onto something here.

From the first batch:

See, the reason I'm so excited about sorbet is that since not eating dairy anymore, ice cream is out. It's been a real bummer not being able to enjoy this summertime ritual the last two years. But sorbet offers hope again of summer time sweetness and the fun of teaching the Rutabaga how to eat from an "ice cream" cone.

  

Flour's Banana Bread made vegan

We have recently fallen in love with Banana Bread in our house. For awhile we thought The Rutabega might also be allergic to bananas, turns out not true and the symptoms from before were possibly just bad coincidences. Our favorite recipe right now is from the Flour cookbook, made vegan. Here is how I have adapted the recipe...

- Reduce sugar down to a scant 1/2 cup
- Substitute the eggs for 1/4 cup applesauce + 1/2t baking powder and 1t baking soda + 1 Tablespoon white vinegar. I put all of this into the "wet" ingredients bowl, then skip the step of slowly adding the oil to the eggs.
- Replace the sour cream with 2T coconut raspberry yogurt.
- Cook for 75 minutes

I made it last night and half of it was gone before we want to work today.