It’s Summer! Personally, I think sorbets are so much more refreshing than ice cream when it’s hot out. Cannelle et Vanille has this recipe on her site and her beautiful images make me feel cooler already!

The recipe is perfectly simple for those sticky summer afternoons.

Peach Sorbet

500 grams peach puree
75 grams atomized glucose
110 grams water
65 grams sugar
3 grams sorbet stabilizer

Pineapple Sorbet

500 grams pineapple puree
70 grams water
75 grams atomized glucose
60 grams sugar
1.5 grams sorbet stabilizer

Kiwi Sorbet

500 grams kiwi puree
225 grams water
65 grams atomized glucose
120 grams sugar
2 grams sorbet stabilizer

Method is the same for all of them

Start by making the sugar syrup. Place the water and the atomized glucose in a small saucepan . Bring to a simmer. In the meantime, whisk together the sugar and sorbet stabilizer in a separate bowl . When the water comes to a light boil, add the sugar and stabilizer mixture, whisk and bring to a boil. When it starts to boil, pour the syrup into a bowl and let it cool slightly before refrigerating. Refrigerate the sugar syrup overnight.

Add the fruit puree to the sugar syrup, mix really well and churn in ice cream machine . Freeze.

In the summer I love to eat fresh pineapple .  It’s one of my favorite summer fruits but one of my least favorite to actually prepare.  Cutting a pineapple is a frustrating process and typically involves a much larger knife than I prefer to use in the kitchen.

That’s why I was so excited to see the Vacu Vin Pineapple Corer at Cooking.com .  It cores the pineapple for you, all you need to do is slice off the top and then this device does the rest for you, making perfect pineapple rings.

I compared several different pineapple corers/slicers before settling on this one.  What really sold me was that it came with three different sized attachments depending on the size of the fruit.  Otherwise most of the different models were pretty similar in price and style.  The Vacu Vin is only $14.95, which is about the price threshold I have for random kitchen tools.

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As if I haven’t given you enough reasons to get out to your local farmer’s market and take advantage of all the fruits and vegetables that are in season right now, here’s another one.  It’s been scientifically proven that they help prevent and fight cancer.
These are the health-promoting compounds that occur naturally in foods:

• Anthocyanidins - Antioxidants with anti-inflammatory properties.  Think purple: beets, blackberries, blueberries, cherries, red grapes and purple cabbage.

• Carotenoids - protect vital fatty acids and enhance immune response.  Good sources: apricots, carrots, dark leafy greens, yams, squash, and tomatoes.

• Lutein - an antioxidant that helps protect cells and maintains health of eyes, heart, skin, and breasts and cervix in women.  Go green: spinach, collard greens, kale, leeks, peas and romaine lettuce

• Lycopene - reduces risk of prostate cancer in men.  Overall, it’s also a potent antioxidant and prevents damage to DNA.  Tomatoes have the highest percentage of lycopene; other food sources include watermelon, pink grapefruit and guava juice.

• Sulfer compounds - may help remove cancer -causing agents from your body as well as improve estrogen balance.  Mr. Mustard Family: broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, mustard greens, radishes, and turnips

The easiest way to make sure you’re selecting a good mix of cancer-fighting fruits and vegetables is by observing the colors: purple, orange, dark green and pink/red.  A mix like this is not only pleasing to your body but also to your eye.

After all that barbeque this 4^th of July, possibly the best thing you can grab for dessert is a healthy slice of watermelon. It’s low in saturated fat, cholesterol and sodium and also a very good source of Vitamin A and Vitamin C. If you want to try something new and absolutely delightful with this 4^th of July tradition, squeeze some fresh lime juice on it. It takes the flavor to a gourmet level and increases your vitamin C count for added health benefits. If you’ve been asked to bring a dessert to this year’s All-American shindig, this might be the easiest, healthiest and most appealing dish of them all. It will certainly be the most refreshing!

A team of Belgium scientists recently tested 29 different fruits and vegetables to see what happens to their antioxidant capacity over time. Details of the study can be found here. Interestingly, most of the fruits and vegetables had stable levels of antioxidants even after visual signs of spoilage began and many actually expressed higher levels of antioxidants as they began to spoil. So apparently there must be some sweet spot between fresh-off-the-vine and rancid where you get the most health benefits without causing yourself to hurl.

Not surprisingly, I’ve decided not to optimize my fruit and vegetable intake to take advantage of this new insight. Taste trumps nutrition in this case – especially since the difference was usually not that much (except for onions, see below*). But it’s good to know that even if you don’t have a garden or have a farmer’s market nearby that you can get the same (maybe even more) nutritional value from the fruits and vegetables at your local supermarket.

* There where some notable fruits and vegetables that you do want to eat as fresh as possible. These include apricots, spinach, bananas, broccoli and leeks. In contrast, the vegetable with the biggest increase over time was the onion, which continually increased its antioxidant capacity over time - after 23 days onions had over 10 times more than they had when they were fresh!