Something Light

And now, for something not quite as heavy as my last post.  Everything can't always be sweetness and light. Yes, I was on my soap box a bit. But, occasionally we have to call things as we see them. We have to speak our mind and take a stand and choose sides. Say our peace, get things off our chest, call a spade a spade. Tell it like it is, not mince words, shoot straight. Oh, alright, I'm beginning to bore myself.

Well, things indeed cannot ALWAYS be sweetness and light, but today they can be.  It may be September, but I am continuing my love affair with my Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker regardless of the season.  And why not?  We have yet to have a low temperature below 70 degrees and it is STILL technically summer and who cares anyway?  I crave ice cream in July, love it in October, still gotta have it at Christmas.  Please take me out for a scoop in February.  Still not tired of it in April.  And then it's summer again and time for ice cream.

I've been buying buttermilk for--you guessed it--ice cream.  But I only use 1 cup in a single recipe and sometimes end up with part of a carton left and an expiration date looming.  There are lots of things you can do with buttermilk.  You can drink it straight (my mother and sister do that, and, gross!)  You can bake a cake, use it to make cornbread or hush puppies, substitute it into pancake mix--it's hard to go wrong with buttermilk when baking.  But I had a mantra running through my head, "Make lemon buttermilk sorbet, make lemon buttermilk sorbet."  I'm not sure where that came from.  I can't remember ever having any such confection, but some inner culinary instinct was telling me to head in that direction.  When in doubt, cast it out into web world and allow Google to pass judgment.  I got a hit, just like that, on Epicurious.  Ingredients:  buttermilk, lemon juice and zest and sugar, all things I had on hand.  I read many of the comments that had been made about the recipe on Epicurious and decided I would need to half the recipe to accommodate my Cuisinart and decrease the sugar as many folks commented it was too sweet as posted. The great thing about making ice cream is that one dip of the spoon into the mix for a taste is all it takes to tell whether or not you will like the result.  And oh, so easy to correct your flavors at that stage.  I recommend always going light on the sugar since it isn't hard to add BUT impossible to take back (like unkind words.)  The same thing goes for acidic things like citrus and vinegar.  If you are experimenting, start on the light side, taste, then add more if necessary.

I know you are dying to know how this turned out.  It was buttermilk, lemon and sugar at its very best.  Yes, all sweetness and light.  Lovely and refreshing.  Let me give you a little advice.  If anyone in your home is squeamish about buttermilk, don't broadcast it to them.  You don't want them bringing any preconceived ideas to their first tasting.  Let them tell you how fabulous it is and then you can hint at the secret ingredient, so sweetly and lightly yourself, that by the time they figure out you've just fed them frozen buttermilk, they will already be in your court.

Lemon Buttermilk Sorbet
3/4 cups sugar, plus 1  MORE Tb.
Juice and zest of 2 lemons
2 cups buttermilk

Combine all ingredients and stir until sugar has dissolved.  Refrigerate until very cold.  Freeze in ice cream maker according to manufacturer's instructions.