Rhubarb-Strawberry Sorbet

I've been taking advantage of the quickly fading spring weather by spending as much time as possible sitting on my deck in the evenings. Often this involves a cocktail, but sometimes a glass of seltzer with some bitters and a stack of cookbooks will do the trick.

As I took this photo, I thought about how well this group of cookbooks actually represents me, especially at this time of year when the seasonal markets and CSAs are starting back up and spring produce is abundant. I certainly feel blessed to live in a place where there is such a diversity of food and great access to organically farmed produce and sustainably raised meat!

In any event, on to today's spring produce turned tasty dish. My mom was in town this weekend and I had offered to make her dinner one night as a belated mother's day present. In preparation, I decided to use the leftover rhubarb and strawberries I had to make sorbet. I had already made a strawberry sorbet for my friend's birthday using the instructions from the Zuni Cafe cookbook (technically not paleo since I used plain old white sugar to make his). This time, I used a recipe from my favorite ice cream & sorbet source, David Lebovitz's The Perfect Scoop replacing the sugar with a lesser amount of honey.

Here's what I did:

I sliced up about 3/4 of a lb of rhubarb and put the slices into a medium saucepan with 2/3 c of water and 1/3 c of honey and simmered until the rhubarb was tender, then stuck it in the fridge to cool. While the rhubarb mixture cooled, I hulled and sliced about a quart of strawberries and put them in the blender, then added the rhubarb mixture, a pinch of kosher salt, & 1/2 t of lemon juice and pureed. Try tasting the puree both before and after you add the lemon juice if you've never done this before; it's amazing how much it brightens the flavors!

I let the puree chill overnight in the fridge, then put it in my ice cream maker the next day until the sorbet had thickened. One thing to note, your sorbet will still be fairly soft when you pull it out of the ice cream machine so plan to chill it in the freezer for a few hours before serving. Also worth noting that sorbet gets really hard in the freezer so you'll want to pull it out and let it sit for 5-10 minutes before scooping. This makes a fairly tart sorbet that showcases the rhubarb so add a bit more honey in the beginning if you want yours sweeter.

I served scoops of both the strawberry-rhubarb sorbet and the more intensely flavored and sweeter strawberry sorbet alongside paleo coconut macaroons from the baker at my market and my mom was in heaven: