Saturday 16 July 2011

hot, hotter, and humid ...

Half way though July and it's getting hotter.  As you may know, I am not a summer girl; as a matter of fact, summer is my least favorite season.  For those of you who live in northern (or far southern) parts, summer is a season with nice warm weather with longer days, but those of us down here, it's just very uncomfortable months.  It's almost 36 degrees C with 70% humidity outside today.  For your (who lives in North America) information, 36 degrees is about body temperature.  Of course Nadia who lives in Tunisia who left me a comment on the previous post said she was suffering from 100 degrees F, which I understand is over 37 degrees C, so I should not complain much (it's just one degree in difference, but I know one degree at this high temperature makes a very big difference) but still it's not very fun enduring steamy weather.  I am unable to enjoy the heat, I just can't.  No sun bathing for me, thank you very much.

I got myself an ice cream machine the other day.  I have always wanted one but didn't have a reasonable excuse to buy one.  Not that I got a good reason this year, but I went ahead and bought it anyway.  My machine is a small one and it can only process about half a litter of ice cream base at one go.  It consists of two parts; a container which requires to be kept in the freezer for over 10 hours in advance so that it will be nice and well chilled when processing the ice cream, and an electric paddle which placed on top of the container (as a lid) and whisk the ice cream during processing.  

My favorite flavor so far is apricot sherbet.  Just cooked apricots in the syrup with a slice of lemon and processed it in the blender and sieved and chilled, then processed it through ice cream machine.  It's very yummy as the way it comes out of the machine, all nice and soft and chilly, but once the sherbet is stored in the freezer, it becomes firm and you can make ice cream soda with it.  Well, it's not ice cream, so I should not call it ice cream soda.  Can you tell me what's supposed to be called?
Instead of club soda, you can use dry white wine or sparkling wine.
and it's a lovely treat for hot and humid summer.