Simple Recipes Feature

Our summery cocktail, the Melonshine, is being featured at Simple Recipes this week. Find it here. Simple Recipes is a great blog that features recipes and ideas from bloggers the Fullers as well as other food bloggers they call "Featured Foodies." Stop by and give it a read!

Sorbetto al Melone

It seems to us that we promised you a recipe about a week ago and we haven't followed through. We're sorry...but we are teachers on summer vacation! And we are about to head to New Orleans, NOLA, the Crescent City, the Big Easy, for two weeks! Which means you probably won't be hearing much from us. For now, here's that recipe we promised - a cool, refreshing, delightful sorbet you can make using your favorite type of melon. We've tried it with watermelon (pictured above) (fantastic) and cantaloupe (our favorite sorbetto ever!). Anyone up for some honeydew?

Sorbetto al Melone, or Melon Sorbet

slightly adapted from Gelato by Adriano di Petrillo

Cooks' Note: Why caster sugar? It dissolves much more easily than granulated sugar so your sorbet isn't gritty.

Ingredients:

1 1/3 cup cold water, divided

juice of 1/2 lemon (about 2 tablespoons)

1 cup caster or superfine sugar (see cooks' note), divided

14 ounces melon, peeled, deseeded and chopped

In a small saucepan over medium heat, heat 2/3 cup water until just boiling. Remove from heat and add the lemon juice and 3/4 cup of the sugar. Stir until the sugar dissolves; set aside and allow to cool. Place chopped melon, remaining 1/4 cup sugar and remaining 2/3 cup water in a food processor and puree. Combine sugar/lemon syrup and melon puree together and stir. Pour mixture into ice cream maker and proceed with manufacturer's instructions. Serve immediately or store in airtight container in freezer up to a week.

Pizza Fail

It sounded good. It was going to make us think of Italy in summer and the times we had fresh, juicy melon wrapped in paper-thin prosciutto. But we were going to put a spin on it. We were going to make it into a pizza. A pizza topped with bufala mozzarella, prosciutto and cantaloupe, then lightly drizzled with balsamic vinegar. 

How far we've fallen, and in only two days! This pizza was a total failure. Although we brushed the dough with olive oil, there was way too much water in the cheese and melon and all of it just soaked into the dough making it a soggy mess. And the prosciutto we bought was pre-sliced and...from Germany. Don't get us wrong, there's nothing wrong with Germany or its prosciutto, but not on this pizza. Because it was sliced thick, it was rubbery and very difficult to chew.

We won't bother giving you a recipe because, really, we don't want you trying this at home. But it sure sounded good. Didn't it?