Like most of the country, Portland is experiencing a massive heatwave this week. But unlike my friends and family on the east coast, most Pacific Northwesterners (including us) don't have central A/C. So for two weeks every summer we collectively roast in our homes, saying things like "be careful what you wish for" and "I hope the neighbors can't see me standing naked in front of this fan right now." It's not pretty. But this year we were prepared. We went to the store on Monday and bought a window A/C unit for our bedroom and the ingredients for a lemon sorbet. If lemonade is the perfect summer drink, lemon sorbet is the perfect summer dessert - especially when the temps get into the triple digits.
The recipe only yielded 2 and 1/2 cups, so I doubled it. It kind of defeats the purpose if the heatwave lasts longer than the sorbet, right? Right. I ended up needing 6 lemons to get 2 cups of lemon juice, which I ran through a fine mesh strainer before mixing with the simple syrup.
After the mixture reached 40 degrees it was time to put it in the ice cream machine. Oh, how I love this part. The freezing took approximately 25 minutes, after which I put the sorbet into a bowl and let it harden for a bit in the freezer.
Yuuuuummmmm. With a handful of cut strawberries (half store bought, half from our garden) this was such a tasty and refreshing dessert. It's going to be even hotter today so we'll definitely be having this again tonight. And tomorrow night...