Here’s a recipe for a delicious original sorbet I made up last night.

Ingredients

1 x 800gr tin of halved pears in juice (not syrup).
100gr of sweetened condensed skim milk.
50ml Southern Comfort (optional).
I handful of finely chopped mint.
3 lemons juiced.
1 tbls glucose (this stops the sorbet from freezing into a solid ice block)

Method

To ensure quick foolproof churning in your ice-cream maker, it’s best if all the ingredients (except for the condensed milk and glucose) are chilled over night before using.  The lemon juice can be frozen.

Place all the contents of the tin of pears into a food processor and puree.  While the food processor is running add the other ingredients to the pears to combine. Once all the ingredients have been completely pureed, empty the food processor contents into the ice-cream maker and churn until your machine stops.  Place the churned sorbet in the freezer for a few hours firm up it’s consistancy. If the sorbet is too hard to scoop, just let it sit for a while before serving.

Last night my wife (Engogirl) and I had Mark and Sonia over for dinner.

They have just come back from a rock climbing trip to France and Greece. I’ve known Mark for about 16 years and we used to go ski touring and climbing a lot together. It was great to catch up with them as we haven’t seen them for about six months since we went to their engagement party.

I particularly enjoy cooking for Mark as he is a Chef by trade and always appreciates the effort I go to when I entertain. Since it is so lovely at this time of the year during the night, we ate al fresco in our backyard.

For the main meal we had a Jamie Oliver inspired recipe of lamb kofta kebabs (minced lamb with pistachios on skewers) barbequed over charcoal with salad all rolled up in burritos.  For wine we started with a lovely chilled sparkling Shiraz by Bleasdale followed by a very easy to drink shiraz called “Jester” by Mitolo.  For dessert we had peche al forno (baked peaches with little Italian biscuits called amaretti mixed with egg white as filling) with my original recipe home made tangy pear and mint sorbet.

Last night’s get-together is an example of one of my favourite ways to spend time.  Good friends, wine and food.