Husbands and Blood Orange Sorbet On My 150th Post

What’s with this week and the recipes I chose? I told you about the Martha Stewart noodle and sesame dressing disaster and I also tried to make a rice dish that ended in inedible mush. Then, I made a sorbet that had issue after issue because the person didn’t provide details pertinent to the process, thus ending with an overpowering bad pear taste (and I like pears) and merely a faint taste of blood orange…not what I wanted. Needless to say, I will not be sharing that one. I tried a new sorbet recipe, purely blood orange with a splash of lime juice. This was much better and reminds me of the granita I made posts ago. I will be sharing that sorbet recipe today.

If there were ever a week to call “one of those weeks,” this one would be it. We are trying to make a new design for this site but I set us back a few days worth of work by pressing a button…seriously, something was pressed on wordpress and the work was bye bye. However, I’m sad to say that we didn’t make much progress, not due to time, but simply not knowing what we don’t know makes getting anywhere a huge pain. Some widgets/plugins don’t want to cooperate so we have to figure out how to avoid these issues by, what feels like, reinventing the wheel. We will be doing this over the weekend. Read here about how well we work together on this project. Any wheel suggestions? Or recommendations for a marriage counselor? Kidding. By the way, I’m kind of excited about Jerry Seinfeld’s new show the Marriage Ref, based on real marriages and all of their idiosyncrasies. This could be good.

Wherever Greg is right now, I can picture his joyful reaction with the knowledge that he gets to work with me this weekend…very frustrated me. I’m bad enough not being frustrated. It doesn’t help that once we sit down together and I give him a clear idea of what I’d like to accomplish for the evening, he proceeds to ask me questions that were answered during my speech…sometimes answered several times because I know how he functions. Somehow he passed his hearing test at work but I told him to have the specialist call and tell me or I wouldn’t believe him. I was joking but maybe he just copied what the person before him did, like when I was young and had eye tests, memorizing what the person said before me that passed. That worked for years until I wanted glasses and my naturally horrible eyesight came to light.

At least now I know that he has the capability to listen, he just blocks me out…he does it to others sometimes too. I know I pick on him quite often about this but repeating myself a fifth time kind of makes anyone flip out. That and he often forgets to put things away so I leave them out in the hopes that he will do it but I am often disappointed. The most aggravating of these times is when I place whatever it is that he left out directly on something he has to use every day and he still doesn’t get it. Sigh.

Back to the food: not only did I waste cups of rice, white wine, blood oranges and pears, I lost my temper and have had some pretty bad “inferior” (opposite of quality) time with my husband. I’ve thought about taking a week or a few days off. I seriously thought about taking time off when I had déjà vu yesterday, like the entire day, with the music playing, my clothes and things I perform daily-you know, déjà vu, everything else was the same as it once was and how it usually goes…what would I do with myself not posting and all the things associated with cooking? I don’t think I would give that up for the break. I don’t know.

So as promised, blood orange sorbet, which makes for a great dessert. A few things first:
1. sorbets usually include fruit, sugar, water (simple syrup) and maybe some alcohol (but this one does not)
2. sorbets usually include the fruit’s pulp (this one has a small amount for my taste but include as much as you would like)
3. it’s like Italian ice but in a category of its own since it can contain alcohol (no, it’s not sherbet either)
4. you don’t need an ice cream maker to make this (see below)
5. this recipe comes from the Ultimate Ice Cream Book by Bruce Weinstein
6. this sorbet could be used to throw at your husband to cool down an argument (see above about the small wars of marriage)

Blood Orange Sorbet
Serves 4 small portions

2/3 cup sugar
1 cup water
8 large blood oranges, peeled and pith (white part) removed to have only the segments
juice of 1 lime (or 1 tbsp of store-bought)

*If using your ice cream maker: Be sure to place the bowl in the freezer until properly frozen a day or 2 ahead.

**If you add a splash of liquor, the alcohol slows down the freezing so that you don’t end up with large ice crystals, which helps if you are making this without an ice cream maker.

Place the sugar and water in a saucepan and bring to a slow boil. Place the heat to low and stir until sugar dissolves, making syrup-like consistency but not a thick version. Remove and allow to cool to room temperature.

With the prepared orange segments, place in a blender, food processor or mash in a bowl by hand to a pulp, with a good amount of juice. You should have about 2 cups of juice, once you place the pulp in a sieve over a bowl or measuring cup. I added a few tbsp of pulp to mine but you can add whatever amount you wish. Combine the juice/pulp, lime juice and cooled syrup. Cover and refrigerate, in an airtight container, until cold, for an hour or 2.

Stir the chilled mixture and then freeze in your ice cream maker for 30 to 40 minutes and then, place in the freezer for another 2 hours before serving. This isn’t required but makes a better sorbet, I think.

If you don’t have an ice cream maker, know that the results will be different but still delicious. Once you have mixed all the ingredients, place in the freezer (instead of the refrigerator) for an hour or two, until you can chip away at it like a granita recipe (see above for a link to my recipe). Place it back in the freezer for a few more hours and continue to chip away at it every few hours until the consistency is somewhat like a sorbet or granita. This will take some time so be prepared (can take up to 8 hours).