I made that!

It was a beautiful day. It was a hard day. I woke up and immediately ran out the door for a bike ride with my boss. My boss who is SO much more in shape than me that the ride left me crippled (well, crippled in that good kind of way – I’ll appreciate it in a few days, when I can feel my thighs again). But it was also a night of 90210 and dinner with the girls, and there was dessert to be made. After a weekend of heavy meaty man-food (not to mention Scott’s meatloaf that I DESTROYED for lunch after the ride), we were going light and springy. Since I was basically attached to the couch, I also needed it to be quick and easy. So sorbet it was. And what a better way to kick off strawberry season than a strawberry vanilla sorbet.

First I made a vanilla sugar by spraping the seeds of a vanilla bean into the sugar and rubbing it in until it looked like this:

I mixed my vanilla sugar and bean with some water and brought it all to a boil. Once it boiled, I turned off the heat and let the flavors steep, occasionally stirring to dissolve the sugar.

While that was steeping, I washed, chopped and hulled my berries. I pureed them and pushed them through a fine sieve to get rid of the seeds.

I mixed the berries with the sugar syrup (minus the bean) and let it hang in the fridge for a bit before spinning it in the ice cream machine (How am I ever gonna survive without this guy once my landlord’s want it back?).

It was so cold and light and strawberry-ey. A perfect springy dessert. Made even more perfect by a crispy vanilla shortbread cookie, because, well, I need a LITTLE fat for it to feel like dessert.

RECIPE:

2 pints strawberries

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup water

1 vanilla bean

basically, do what I did above..there’s really nothing more to it!