Melon Sorbet

by April Paffrath

Oh my, this is heavenly, fragrant, icy stuff.

We get a weekly box of fruit from Boston Organics. We don't do it year-round, just for long stretches when we want more organic fruit in our lives. We do the fruit box (no veggies) and most weeks it gets turned into a massive fruit salad with freshly sectioned oranges and tangerines and the sweet juices preserving the crisp apples and pears. It becomes a sort of impromptu meal and it's gorgeous. The kiwis are a surprise because I had never bought them before we started getting the Boston Organics box, but I find that I miss them if they're not there to pep up a fruit salad.

Last week we started to build up a fruit reserve. We went to NYC and didn't make it through the fruit before we left. On the day we returned, the next box was waiting for us. We were surrounded by fruit and we couldn't eat it fast enough.

I'm a little worried the same thing will happen with our CSA share because we have a full share and we travel quite a bit....so build up can happen. That's why I'm looking into new things to do—prepping food ahead and freezing it. I might even pickle and can food if we're all lucky. There are some local experts I can ask about that—yum, pickles.

But the fruit box from last week was almost taunting me. An apple or pear with every meal is great. But this week there was a HUGE cantaloupe melon sitting there...threatening to go to the dark side before we got to it. Remembering the strawberries I didn't get to in time the other week, I sprung into action. I often wait until I want to consume something to start making something with it. Big mistake. This time I cut into a fragrant, bright and perfectly ripe melon and ran it through my juicer, thinking we'd just have some lovely melon juice to drink. (I have a Magimix by Robot-Coupe with a juice extractor attachment and it is powerful and awesome....but not so fun to clean.) Mid-juicing, I realized the melon juice would be more perfect if it were frozen. After a few sips of melon juice, I gave the rest over to the sorbet.

I took the juice, added some ingredients and put it in the ice cream machine. Wow. Simple as that.

It's the most delicious melon sorbet ever. It tastes like fresh melon, but ice cold and a teensy bit better, even. It turned out a little bit hard the next day, but that could be remedied by adding more sugar or by giving it a few extra stirs in the freezer while it hardens up. I forgot to do that.

Melon Sorbet

• 1 cantaloupe melon

• 1/2 c. sugar

• 1/2 tsp vanilla bean paste or extract.

1. Juice the melon. Or, you could just run it through the blender. It's a high-water fruit and will be plenty liquidy if it's just blended.
2. Whisk in 1/2 c. sugar until the sugar dissolves.
3. Add vanilla bean paste and whisk until combined.
4. Pour into the ice cream machine, sit back and read something, or daydream about how it will taste on a hot summer day when you take it out of the freezer.
5. Eat. Offer only a little spoonful to others or else they will try to take the entire bowl. You may have to ration it out. Enjoy the perfect antidote to sweltering summer afternoons.

Photo (cc) su_anna on Flickr—until I find my accessory cable and can replace it with the photos stuck on my camera. ;)

Comments

[Diane]

I just made this melon sorbet--lovely! Especially on a hot summer day. Thanks for the idea of what to do with an extra melon. Now I know how easy making sorbet is I'll be trying other recipes as well as ice cream!