Watermelon Lime Basil Sorbet (No Ice Cream Machine)

This Independence Day, like most American consumers, we had a meal of hot dogs, sauerkraut, baked beans (home made of course), "Quickles" (quickly pickled cucumbers, aka cucumber dill salad), and corn on the cob.  Of course the watermelon could not be left out and served to complete the meal seeing as huge whole seedless watermelons were on sale ($2.99).

When I put the watermelon on the kitchen counter after washing it, I only then realized the enormity of it.  Feeling creative, I decided to make something with half of it so that we would not waste any of it.  Sadly, I threw out the rinds before I realized I could have made some delicious watermelon rind pickles.  In the spirit of the dog days of summer, I ended up making sorbet.  I never made sorbet before, but this turned out to be a great recipe.  Next time, I will try an alternative to corn syrup and sugar, though I'm not sure there really is one that will achieve a similar smooth not-too-ice-crystally sorbet texture.  The corn syrup is a different sugar structure and basically intercalates between the sugar so that upon re-crystalization of the sugar and water, the crystals that form are smaller and less icy.  I believe that honey might do the trick.

Surprisingly, I basically followed a recipe, more surprisingly it came from Rachel Ray Magazine because it was the top recipe returned for my Internet search of "watermelon sorbet", and even more surprisingly it was really simple:

WATERMELON SORBET
June/July 2007
8 servings; Prep: 30 minutes (plus freezing)

INGREDIENTS:
5 pounds seedless watermelon, cut into small chunks (6 cups)1/4 cup sugarGrated peel of 1 limePinch salt1/2 cup light corn syrup

DIRECTIONS:
Using a blender, puree the watermelon; you will need 4 cups watermelon puree.
In a large saucepan, bring 1 cup watermelon puree, the sugar and lime peel to a simmer over medium-low heat, stirring until the sugar dissolves; season with the salt. Pour in the remaining 3 cups watermelon puree, then whisk in the corn syrup until incorporated. Pour the watermelon mixture into a 9-inch metal cake pan and freeze until firm, about 4 hours or overnight.
Let the frozen watermelon soften at room temperature for 5 minutes. Using a butter knife, break up the frozen puree into 2-inch pieces. Transfer the pieces to a food processor in batches and pulse until smooth. Store the sorbet in a freezer-safe container for up to 1 week. Let stand for 5 minutes before scooping.

TIP:  For a change - Replace the corn syrup with sweetened condensed milk to make ice cream.

The basil was my addition because I recently had a homemade ice pop made of kiwi and basil.  The ice pop has a bit too much basil, but the combination was surprisingly refreshing and herbs in dessert applications are trending towards being more popular of late.  I basically blended about 1/4-1/3 C packed basil leaves with some of the watermelon chunks and put all of that through the strainer.  I also used my food processor and not a blender for all of this paying attention to mind the "max liquid fill line" on the bowl so I pureed everything in batches.

I highly recommend trying this and being creative yourself.  I can't wait to try different summer fruits, and maybe I'll even try the ice cream version as suggested.

Home-grown + Home-made Tricolore Pesto

Left most:  Lettuce-leaf Basil; Back center:  Italian Sweet Basil (classic); Right:  Anise Hissop

Hello!  All of the above herbs were grown in our little urban-suburban claim to land.  It was a bountiful harvest today, and the plan is to make some "tricolore" pesto.  Perhaps it will be spread on a pork loin, rolled up and grilled to make some pesto-stuffed pork loin!

More later!

Well...as it turns out, a trip to H-Mart later returned garlic scapes, supposedly amazing rice suggested to us by a trusted source to try out in our hand-me-down rice cooker, and some small whole Red Snapper.  As a result, the pesto was made with deliciously fresh looking garlic scapes instead:

The small whole Red Snapper was paired with the pesto instead of pork loin this evening.  The Snapper was sliced on the bias several times on each side and stuffed with pesto in the slits made as well as in the middle belly portion.

I seared the Snapper on both sides in a heavy bottomed stainless steel pan, deglazed with some white wine and stuck the whole pan (covered) in the over at about 400 F for 20 min, followed with a brief 5 min broil (uncovered) at the end.  I removed the Snapper from the pan, added some butter on the stovetop, browned the butter and bits remaining and again deglazed with some white wine briefly to produce a nice pesto browned butter sauce that I strained and served over the fish.  I forgot the "after" photograph of the fish.  Oh well, trust that it was tasty!

Regarding the rice, I'm not sure if we did something wrong or the rice cooker has its own issues, but the rice turned out mushy and slightly burntish/stuck to the bottom.  Therefore, being the quick thinking cook that I am, I remembered I had two zucchini in the fridge from the Farmer's Market the week before that really needed to be used.  I thought:  "Ah-ha!  I'll make pesto-zucchini rice cakes!"  Voila!  I mixed 2 eggs, some of the remaining pesto and the rice in a bowl and pan fried the cakes in some olive oil.  They were delicious and were an excellent application of the otherwise slightly gummy and tasteless rice.

Overall, it was a very tasty meal that cost in all $9.00 total.  In a seafood restaurant this would have easily been a $60 bill.  One note is that next time, I might just go for the filets...bones are a pain!