Thursday, June 30, 2011

Strawberries: Making sorbet


I planted 250 more everbearing strawberry plants this spring, so I came up with a bunch of different uses for them.  One of my favorites (after margaritas) is sorbet.  It's very easy and a whole lot less expensive than those teeny cartons at the grocery store.  I found a great recipe at King Arthur Flour.
 First pick those yummy berries.
Wash and rinse, shaking out the excess water.

If you own a food mill (and I highly recommend getting one) you don't have to hull or spend time running them through a sieve to get the seeds out, just grind them up in your food mill after you've dried them and they'll be almost completely seedless.  If you don't own a mill GET ONE!!  But seriously, you'll have to hull the berries and blend them up in your processor or blender, then push the juice through a sieve to remove the seeds.  Pain in the neck, when a mill is SO much easier (and you'll  find a ton of uses for it later).  You'll need 3 cups juice, save the extra for syrup (add equal amounts sugar, let macerate overnight) for pancakes, yogurt, ice cream, margaritas....the list goes on endlessly!

Yummy juice!!
Baby approves.

In a saucepan, combine 1 cup sugar and 1 cup water, bring to a boil for 5 minutes.  Cool, add to strawberries, 1/4 cup corn syrup, and 1/4 cup lemon juice,  mixing well.  Let sit in the fridge for a few hours to chill, then use in your ice cream maker as you would ice cream.
 In about 25 minutes you'll have yummy sorbet, but I put it in the freezer for a few hours to firm up.

2 comments:

  1. Amanda, You torture me! I looked at strawberry plants and they were $10 for one plant. Something is wrong here, really, really wrong. What kind of food mill is that?I sort of like the seeds but when I dried some strawberries, the seeds were the bulk of the dried strawberry, so not good for munching. Oh, I will look at the food mill link and see what you have.

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  2. Linda, I'm sorry, that wasn't my intention!! I bought the plants last fall through Gurney's. I got a great deal on them, I think it was $10 for 50 plants and they shipped them early spring. The food mill is similar to this one (if you click on the link in the blog it will take you to amazon) Victorio VKP250 Model 250 Food Strainer and Sauce Maker. There are different screens to use for different food, berry, tomato, apple, etc.
    I love that my plants send out shoots for new plants.
    Good luck!

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