Cafe Liz

As you may have noticed, I’ve been making a lot of ice cream and chilled drinks lately, and not too much of what I’d call “real food.” That’s because the last thing I want to do right now is stand over a hot stove (or worse, turn on the oven). The weather is so hot that I’m feeling rather well cooked as it is. Indeed, (wo)man cannot survive on ice cream and watermelon alone, but we’ll worry about that another [...]

This recipe really gives it all away at once — cherry coconut sorbet with amaretto. That’s what’s in it: cherries, coconut and amaretto. Oh, and a bit of sugar. It’s really that simple. I’ve been eying the beautiful cherries at the market for the past several weeks now. They’re not exactly the cheapest fruit, but fortunately the price has been coming down to 20-25 shekels a kilo, and I usually make the splurge. It’s well worth it, because the cherries [...]

It seems there’s quite a demand for a loquat sorbet recipe. I’ve actually been planning to make one for a while, but a request from a reader in Malta (echoed by others in Israel) told me that now’s the time — after all, the season’s almost over. So, as the weather becomes warmer, what better way to serve our last loquats than frozen into a smooth sorbet with mint and lemon?

Passion fruit is downright weird — it’s ripe once the peel begins to wrinkle, at which point you slice it open to find it filled with yellow goo. Not the kind of texture you’d usually associate with fruit. That said, it’s a fabulous ingredient for cooking — full of intense, tangy flavor. It also happens to be in season. I picked up a bucket full of passion fruit for less than five shekels (about $1.25) at my favorite corner greengrocer. [...]

Strangely enough, I guess you could consider cranberry an exotic fruit around here — the climate is way too warm to grow cranberry bushes. This means I made this granita out of cranberry juice, which is readily available.

UPDATE DECEMBER 2010: This has become one of our favorite homemade ice creams. As with everything that passes through our kitchen, the recipe has been modified over time. Here’s the new version. For about 1 liter ice cream: 1 cup water 3/4 cup cocoa powder 1/2 cup sugar 2 cups coconut cream (200 grams/1 can) Refrigerate the coconut cream in advance. Mix the water with the cocoa and the sugar; heating the water may help the sugar dissolve. Cool the [...]

I was thinking of calling this a tropical fruit sorbet, but I guess there’s nothing too tropical about pomegranates and oranges, since they both grow locally in our lovely Mediterranean climate. Coconut, however, is another story. I’m finding coconut cream adds a nice texture to my non-dairy, vegan sorbets. In this case, it’s a surprising taste alongside our local fruits. As a bonus, this sorbet came out a gorgeous fuchsia.