One of Matt’s favorite desserts is lemon squares, but when I made them this time, I decided to change it up and use lime juice instead.  I also added some ginger, again going for that ginger-lime combination I use for sherbet a few weeks ago.  This time, I again didn’t add enough ginger though, so if you want that to come through, add more!  Fresh ginger in the filling might help, too.

Everyone enjoyed the flavor of these with lime instead of lemon.  In fact I think I might like them even better than the original!  The extra tang from the lime just seems particularly summery. Read the rest of this entry »

Sorry, Daring Bakers…if you’re here looking for my post that was due yesterday, unfortunately it’s nowhere to be found.  Life has been just too crazy this month!  But by all means, everyone should check out the success of everyone else’s mallow cookies and milanos here.  Wish I could’ve joined you — they look delicious!

I have a weakness for the juice/smoothie case at Whole Foods, and last weekend when we stopped in to get a few things for dinner, I found a new flavor I hadn’t tried before, called Red Ginger Lime.  I can’t remember who made it, but it was delicious — a sharp bite from the ginger, a tart kick from the lime, and a little bit of sweetness from some blood orange juice (which also turned it a lovely shade of deep magenta).  I was eager to try the ginger-lime combination again, and I’ve been wanting to break out the ice cream maker, so I made sherbet a few days later.  We had some watermelon that needed to be eaten too, so I used it to cut the sourness of the limes a bit.  (I’ve got something else with the ginger-lime combo cued up for later this week…)

The difference between a sorbet and a sherbet is the addition of dairy — sorbet is generally all fruit juice, while sherbet has some milk or cream.  I wanted this to be a bit creamy, so I opted for sherbet, which I think also lasts a little longer in the freezer before becoming icy, from the extra fat I guess.  I also wanted a very tart sherbet, which I got, but it’s maybe a little on the edge of too tart.  If you don’t like your mouth to pucker, I would definitely suggest adding more sugar or honey, or a little less lime juice.

Finally, it’s not quite gingery enough, honestly, and I think this to some extent depends on how strong your fresh ginger is.  But I found that the ginger flavor seemed more muted when frozen than before, and that the tartness of the limes was more pronounced after it was frozen, so that should help guide you to add more or less ginger and honey.

A very refreshing summer treat! Read the rest of this entry »

I found blueberries for $3/pound last week, so I actually felt like I could buy enough to do something more than sprinkle a few in my oatmeal.  Cherries were cheap too, so I modified my grandmother Meme’s blueberry muffin recipe to include some cherries too. I was hoping they’d look kind of belatedly patriotic, but actually the cherries turn darker and the blueberries turn purple when cooked, so you really can’t see the difference.

Isn’t it wonderful what happens to blueberries when they bake?  I love the way they sort of explode and seem even juicier than when you pop them in your mouth raw.  I didn’t have any lemons so I added some lemon extract, otherwise I would’ve just used lemon zest.  I like the almond flavor with the cherries and blueberries, but you could also just use vanilla.
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Well, looks like the updates didn’t go quite as smoothly as we had hoped.  If you’re reading this through an RSS reader, you may have noticed the pictures weren’t showing up for a couple days, and if you tried to access anything on Friday during the day, you may have noticed that almost all the links weren’t working.  Both of these were a result of our adding some code to try to stop hotlinking — I’ve been seeing some pictures showing up on other sites via hotlinking without attribution lately, and in trying to nip that in the bud we broke some other things.  Anyway…. we think (hope!) that everything is fixed now.  If you are still having issues, please let us know either via comment here or email to admin@meltingonline.com.

And, to make it up to you, let me share the apricot-cherry crumble I threw together the other night.  This is another to file under “tasty-but-won’t-win-any-beauty-contests,” but it’s deliciously tart-sweet, with some crunch from the topping, it’s quick and easy, and it’s the perfect way to use up any of that wonderful summer fruit that you haven’t quite managed to eat out-of-hand before it starts to get kinda squishy.

I had some apricots left from our trip to the Ferry Building Farmer’s Market in SF with Phillip and Jammie last weekend, and they needed to be eaten, stat.  I also had some cherries, so those were the two fruits I used, but really, this idea works with any summer fruit, and especially with the myriad different stone fruits.   You can use any amount of fruit, just bake it in a different size dish, and since there’s no pie crust to fuss with, you just make however much topping you need.  I ate mine topped with whipped cream, but it would also be good with ice cream, or just by itself.  Here are the proportions I used, but scale it up or down and substitute as you like.

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