I have had three cold showers today.
Outside is lovely, bright and beautiful and exactly what I was hoping for, but inside – my goodness. Everyone is flat. And covered in a sticky, glossy film of the kind of sweat that never dries. There is no air conditioning here, or at work. And yet, I have not adapted. The cat seems to be suffering the most, and looks like a puppet without a hand, just tossed on the floor. And I think she might be losing it. Do cats get the heat crazies and hallucinate? Am I projecting my own neuroses? Should I stop talking about my cat? Okay. I will. After this photo.
So, yeah. We’re a little warm. We haven’t been eating any of the kinds of things that demand high heat or long cooking times. We have been drinking homemade iced tea by the gallon, and eating a lot of fruit. And today, granita. Because I don’t own an ice cream maker (I really have to do something about that) and there is no place to buy Slurpees within walking-without-sweating-distance.
Granita is actually the perfect hot-weather dessert, because it’s completely no-stress. You just haul your sweaty ass off the couch every so often to scrape the ice crystals – no churning required. It takes about three hours, but most of that time can be spent procrastinating over other things. And this granita? It tastes like Creamsicles.
Orange granita
(Serves four to six.)
- Zest of 1 large navel orange
- Zest and juice of 1 lemon
- 1 cup freshly squeezed orange juice
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- Pinch salt
- 1 tsp. vanilla
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
In a pot over medium-high heat, combine citrus zest, juices, sugar, and salt. Whisk until sugar has completely dissolved – two to three minutes.
Remove from heat. Whisk in vanilla and cream, and pour the whole thing into a glass pan or pie plate. And then put it in the freezer.
Every hour for the first three hours after that, pull the juice out of the freezer and scrape with a fork to move the ice crystals around, which keeps them from becoming a solid mass. After that, just pop in every once in awhile to be sure that all is well, scraping as needed.
Serve as is, or with whipped cream.
Every hour for the first three hours after that, pull the juice out of the freezer and scrape with a fork to move the ice crystals around, which keeps them from becoming a solid mass. After that, just pop in every once in awhile to be sure that all is well, scraping as needed.
Remove from the freezer about ten minutes before serving, and scrape with a spoon into serving dishes. Serve as is, or with whipped cream. Swoon.
Did I just tell you about dessert first? I guess I did. Come back soon – I have lots to tell you, all about baked beans and ribs and cornbread with blackberries and wonderful things like that.
*Note: I originally called the grapes “concord” because until this morning when I read the package, I thought that’s what they were called. No. They’re coronation grapes, and they’re marvellous. But you can make this with concord grapes if that’s what you’ve got. Cheers.
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Stuff I like
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well fed, flat broke 
1 Comment
September 13, 2009 at 6:58 pm · Edit
[…] other day I told you about the coronation grape granita I made for company, and how wonderful that was. Well, lately whenever we’ve got guests, Nick […]