Celebrate National Ice Cream Month and Ice Cream Day with this episode of Big Blend Radio's "Cooking with Ruth" Show with Ruth Milstein who shares how to make her family recipe for Strawberry Sherbet. This recipe is so easy and versatile, you can make it with all kinds of fruits, or even a refresh ice tea or coffee flavor! Check out the recipe, here: https://blendradioandtv.com/listing/strawberry-sherbet/
Ruth Milstein is the author of the Gourmand awarding-winning recipe book, "Cooking with Love: Ventures Into the New Israeli Cuisine." Learn more here: https://www.ruthmilstein.com/
Listen to Big Blend Radio's 3rd Sunday "Cooking with Ruth" podcasts here: https://tinyurl.com/yr9jp58n
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Ruth Milstein - Making Strawberry Sherbet
You're listening to Big Blend Radio's cooking with Ruth Show, featuring Ruth Milstein, author of the Gormand award-winning recipe book "Cooking with Love". Ventures into the new Israeli cuisine. It is time to cook up and get healthy with Ruth, but actually we're not going to be doing too much cooking today. Ruth Milstein is back. She's the author of the Gormand award-winning recipe book "Cooking with Love". Ventures into the new Israeli cuisine. And since it is warm, we are in the throes of the dog days of summer, and it feels like it's never going to end the heat. And it depends on where you are in the country, but it is pretty warm out there. And so Ruth is going to, and it is ice cream month, so Ruth today is going to talk about making sherbet. Sherbet, I always say sherbet, and that's wrong, it's sherbet, especially her strawberry sherbet, and she's got a great recipe for it. It is linked in the episode notes, or you can just go on blendradio and tv.com and type in sherbet, and you'll find it there. But welcome back Ruth, how are you? I'm very good, are you? Doing good, doing good. So we're not really cooking anything. We don't have to make the kitchen hot to do this. No, it is summer, and it's the right thing to do, it's the right thing to do, we don't have to use the stove, we don't have to use it. Ice cream is the time, ice cream, or round ice cream, everything is cold, and this is what you need in the summer. And this is what you want, this is what you need, it gets one, it's easier, and it's tastier, and it's summer, let's have more summer. Yeah, yeah, no, that's cool. And everybody likes it, everybody likes it, all the edges, all the flames, all the neighbors, I mean, and the fridge, a lot of ice cream, a lot of sherbet, everything, this is in the fridge. This seems like really easy to make, though, easy to make. Okay, and let's kind of eat, let's kind of eat also. Oh, we like that, but you said in your recipe, you were talking about the history of it, that's a Persian word, sherbet. And so it's really like an icy drink flavored with orange and rose petals, but now it's kind of gone into a dessert, that's easy to make, and you say you could use any fruit, so it doesn't have to be strawberry. And if you don't have fresh fruit, the fresh fruit in summer is easy to get. I think you can probably make watermelon, watermelon, watermelon is good, watermelon is very good, and it's very low in colour. And healthy for you, and it's watermelon months right now, so this is perfect time, watermelon is more watery, so it's good. Yeah, we like that, and then, so let me go through this, because you're using milk, but you said you like doing this as milk tea, so you said there's a root beer way to do it. So this is very, it's really about, I'm going to do the recipe, just tell the recipe for everyone without the strawberries, okay, because then it seems like this is the basis, so tell me if I'm right, you've got half a cup of granulated sugar, one and a half cups of reduced fat milk, because it's not supposed to be ice cream, you've got half a cup of half and half cream, a teaspoon of vanilla extract, a teaspoon of freshly squeezed lemon juice, mint or basil leaves for garnish, but you use like a pound of fresh strawberries or an 18 ounce bag of frozen strawberries unsweetened that you thaw out and you wash them and everything, but you could do like the watermelon instead of the strawberries, right, you could do a little, and you keep the same thing. And you could use it also in the wind pair, because you don't use it properly, you could do it in the wind pair, because in the wind pair, the house, it's very hot, you want something cold, okay, and so it's good for all year round, so you mix everything together, the fruit and everything, and then you just freeze it, right in a cake pan, yes, yes, wow, and you say to use a metal pan is better. Yeah, yeah, and it only takes three to four hours, yeah, so then it's cold, it keeps it cold, and that's it, so it's like ice cream and sorbet, but it's in between, so if people are coming over for dinner, this is easy to make, it's like a nice refreshing dessert. And the color is not high, not like ice cream. When you take it out, do you stir, when it's freezing, do you stir it? I would stir it on another one, yes, I would stir it again, it's better, it's better, because the stir's tearing, you don't see everything, you don't do everything, I stir it the second time. And then when you stir it, do you stir it up for that too? No. Okay, do you just put it into the bowl like you would ice cream? Yeah, yeah. You have to put it in the top, you can put whatever you want in the top, not something, yeah. I was looking at your recipe photo, that is like, you've got the strawberry pink, man, that really came through with the colors, you know. I want to do this with mango, I know that would be messy because it's hard to cut up the mango, but I think a mango sherbet would be really good, like really, really good. I love mango, but not everybody likes mango, I do love mango, I love mango, it's my favorite. Yeah, but mango's supposed to be really ripe, completely ripe, and sometimes people eat it not completely ripe, and they don't know what to do, they don't know what to do in the end, they don't know. Well, I like it when it's really, really ripe, but I tend to like a little bit of unripe, unripe mango in South Africa, we used to eat green mangoes like that, but it's bitter, but there's something different about the, it's, it's, it's not for everyone. And I don't know if it's even good for you, but as kids, it would be like, you know, eating a sour candy with a little, yeah, I know what you're doing and you used to, two different things. Yeah, so I kind of like it, but because it can actually even taste the mango itself better, but the mangoes, I mean, when it's juicy and it goes down your cheeks, could you do this with peaches? Can I just recipe? Yeah, but really peaches, but must be firm. Oh, okay. Yes, good, yes. Okay, and you say raspberries are good too, but then what about the seeds? The things that... Oh boy, yeah, okay, because you were talking about that in the order. You have to do a little good thing. You say that the raspberries, you get, you get them out by putting them through a strainer, the raspberries pushing them through. Yeah. Okay. And then how do you make the tea? Do you, you don't put fruit in, you just add tea that you've already made, and then you pour it in. Like, is it? It's important. Yes. Yeah. Like a juice. Okay. Like you can make, you can make a big, big bunch and keep it for the summer. Oh, okay. My mom, my mom used to make big bunch, and I remember I was kids. She used to make big bunch, and she used to put some white powder there. And she put it in some place, this is very cold. Not cold, that's rich. And, and dark, you know. Yeah. Oh, wow. Give the summer. Yeah. And, oh. I want some, not good for the summer, and we had it. You know, I was thinking you could probably put, because you were saying using metal cans, what if you got like a muffin tin and put the, so when you scoop it out, it's like a little form, and then you could put a berry on top. It would be kind of a nice presentation, wouldn't it? Or is it too soft to do that? Absolutely, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. I think doing a little muffin. Yes. It is great to use it instead of tea or coffee. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Huh. This is cool. You want it cold? You want something cold? Yeah. Mm-hmm. This is really good. This is good. But, you're going to see it's not so hard. Mm-hmm. And then you change it up. Just change it up. And it's a healthy. It's a good one. It's food. Food. I like the idea of doing watermelon. That's my thing. I'm thinking watermelon. Watermelon. Watermelon. Watermelon. Watermelon. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Because, you know, people get those big ones and then it's like, oh, it gets ripe too quick and then you haven't eaten at all. This is a good way to have the watermelon. You know? Mm-hmm. To get it. You know, just to. You try. It's a good way to. No. No, I haven't tried it, but I want to. I want to try watermelon like this. Would you change the vanilla and the lemon juice and the mint or basil according to what you've used? I think basil or mint will go well with the watermelon. But the vanilla, I'm not so sure with that. Vanilla goes with everything. Vanilla is very, vanilla comfortable. Vanilla makes everything comfortable. Vanilla, you can use it if it seems vanilla. Yeah. Okay. Well, if you say so, I'll eat it. Yeah, vanilla, yeah. Vanilla, yeah. Yeah. No. Mingle. Vanilla, Mingle. Mingle. Would you serve this with cookies or cake or anything like that? I would serve it instead of cooking cakes. Okay. And this is healthier. When I say summer, I'm talking about July, August. Okay. People don't want cake. They don't want cake and cookies in July, August. Ruth, I want cake and cookies all the time. I'm just saying. No pressure for you. I will bake a cake. Yeah. It's too hard to bake. I do. Yeah. It's, you know, I want to try and make an ice cream cake. But I feel like I want to have like some kind of maybe like a hard cookie like a wafer or something to go with this. I want cookie crumbles or something. I don't know. Just feels like it. But you know, I like the idea of coffee or tea being made into a sherbet. That would be really good. You could maybe even take hot chocolate and turn it into this, right? Ooh. Hot chocolate. Hot chocolate. Hot chocolate. With. Everything that you like is good. It's good. And we learn. We learn from each other. And if it's not good, let it go. Right? Yeah. Try again. Yeah. Yeah. I like that. But I think the, you could probably mix coffee and chocolate together. And it will go well with the vanilla, it will go well with the mint, even the basil, right? Ooh. You could probably put a little basil. Basil. Basil adds so much. Mm-hmm. It adds so much. And, and you could probably put, if you did like a hot chocolate one, and it's now cold, right? You could probably put a little bit of bay leaves on it or something, a little kalua with a coffee one. Just, you know, just a little cocktail-y kind of, kind of thing with it. And you could probably, if you're going to do like a chocolate or a coffee, you could probably put a little bit of chili in there. Just a little bit of, it's going to add. If it's really little, it's going to add. Mm-hmm. It's going to add a lot. Yeah. Too much is too much. Don't want to do too much. Yeah. Too much. It's a little bit of butter. It's going to add, if it's really little, it's going to add. Mm-hmm. It's going to add a lot. Yeah. Too much is too much. Don't want to do too much. Yeah. Too much. Too much. It's a little bit of butter. It's going to add a lot. Yeah. Too much is too much. It's going to add a lot of chocolate with cayenne pepper. Oh. Yes, please. Oh, it's good. Oh, you know what? This would be really, really, really, really good at passion fruit. My favorite, favorite passion fruit. But then the seeds, you'd have to basically strain it to use just the juice, right? Yeah. You'd have to get the seeds out or mush it up or something. Would the seeds be too much of a problem? Yes, you'd have to be careful with children and all this stuff. But, you know, we already trained and we have to do what you have to do with the seeds. Could you do a pomegranate with all this? I mean, making pomegranate juice is not easy. I mean... It's not easy, but you can do it. You can do it if you have time. You want to train yourself, do it. Do it and see how this works. And let me know. And let me know. I will learn to you. I will learn to you. Ruth, what about making the sherbet savory? Like, could you do this with tomato and carrots, all those stuff or something? Tomato no. Tomato won't survive. Okay. Well, because the milk thing would be weird, right? Yeah. You could have a despotcho, though. That's okay. Because it's still sleepy and stuff. But, yeah. Okay. I see. I got it. I got it. Well, I like this. I think this sounds good. It even sounds good for breakfast. You know? What I think. Oh, because I know. It's great. It's great. You know how much do I bite them in there? Yeah. Because... Yeah. Yeah. Well, now, couldn't you take, instead of doing the milk and the cream, the half and half cream? Yes. Couldn't you use yogurt, like a Greek yogurt or something? Absolutely. Absolutely. That yogurt is great. Yogurt, how do you help me? All of us. Mm-hmm. It's a probiotic. Yes. So, what I was thinking in the Christmas holidays, Ruth, that people could use this with eggnog. Absolutely. You know? That would be a cool little dessert. It's going to be new for them, new for them, new for their guests. Why not? Yeah. I like the idea of eggnog being like... Pissing hot salmon. Pissing hot salmon. Mm-hmm. Who needs coffee and tea? Who needs coffee and tea now? Well, listen. If I don't have my coffee in the morning, nobody wants to know me. These two different things. These two different things. Yeah. In the day, after when you finish, when you finish, you know, dinner, you don't want hot coffee now. No. We don't want hot coffee. No. We want... Yeah. We want the cold coffee. You know? I want that. The cold. But I like this idea a lot because you can play around. You could do so many different things with this. And it's not over creamy either. So, that's good too. Yeah. Quickly in the summer. You won't treat wheat and heavy. You don't want it. Ooh. Ooh. Plums. Ruth. Plums. Ooh. Really good sweet plums. Oh. I love plums. I really love plums. Grum. Grum. It's great. It's sweet, but it's not so... Not so high in calorie. Not so high in calorie. Oh, I'm just thinking of all the wonderful grapes. What about grapes? If you use seedless grapes, could you do it? I think you could. I will do. I will do it. Yeah. Me too. Why not? We have grape foods. We have grape foods. Mm-hmm. That's grape foods. You did. Eat it. Yeah. This is... But I like this. I like this. I like this because this is... This is such a simple, easy recipe. Kids could make it. You know, and once they get to know it, they can get creative and start adding things and changing things according to what they bought. And it's quick to make. You know. And for everybody having barbecues at their house or a pool party. You could do this. You know, and it's just a really nice, easy, lightweight kind of... You know, it's light. It's light, you know, to do. You have the barbecue. Last time you were on the show, we were talking about grilling fruit. And I feel like you could take this with your grilled fruit too. It would be a nice pairing. Depending on what, you know, you didn't. You know. Ooh. This is very good. Everyone, the recipe again is in the episode notes. But as we heard us talk about this, you can... The sky's a limit in creativity. Have fun with it. Try the coffee. Try the tea. You know, try different. Ooh, I was thinking like chamomile would be kind of nice and calm. That's a calm. Yes. Ooh, nice chamomile. Yeah, people care from all these. And yeah, I don't understand it. I don't understand it. But when I...I'm making that, they try it. And after they come in, they say, "Oh, thank you. Thank you." But you're making that. You know, even it exists. When I look at it, I don't even try it. Yeah. People are just writing. They do. They do. Which is cool. I don't know. I'm trying much more than before. Now they try much more than before. Oh, yes. I like that. But again, kids can be involved. Because if kids are helping to cook it, they're going to eat it. You know, they're going to try it. And I think this would be fun for them to use. You know, and yeah, I like this a lot. So everyone try it. Get your cake pans out. Get your muffin tins. I think the muffin tins would be fun to do with it. Absolutely. You know, have a little shape. And then you can top it with a berry. And then the mint leaf, you know, like you're saying, you can try that and make it extra pretty. I'm thinking peaches and cream, Ruth. That would be perfect. Peaches. And we show that the food is really, really fresh. Okay. This is the food for us. Yeah. I didn't have the problem. I didn't have the problem. I'm going to go up because I went to the backyard, I picked whatever I want. Oh, it's nice. Yeah. I see the food. They look great. They're nuts. They're nuts. They're frozen. They're frozen. Most of them, they're frozen. It is what you can do. Yeah. Do what you can. Yeah. Do the best you can. They look nice. Okay. No, there's nothing like picking something fresh off a tree, you know, or the berries right there and then because they're perfect at that point when they're perfectly right. That's, that's the time, you know, if you can do it, you know, whatever you've got in your yard. The end of the summer, remember, I was kid, my mom used to make end of the summer. She used to make a bunch of them. What, what you're talking about it now? And she used to put some powder, you know, white powder. She used to put it in, in the top of something. Put it for the, yeah, for the, yeah, for the winter. Yeah, she put it in some, she, she looked it. Yeah. In the winter to open it, it just made. Oh, that's cool. Just made. Yeah. And James, she used to make James from summer food. Also, she had some powder. She used to buy some powder. White powder. I would ask my sister. I think she, she, you know, was called what I'm talking about. Yes. You can put some powder, but just to like it. Really like the jar, yes. In the winter, she opened it, it looked just made. Wow. Just make it in game or something else, yeah. Oh, what? Just to keep it very, not in the fridge. It's very, it's very, it's very, I think, pull, try the place. Yeah, pull, yeah. Yeah, a pantry. Yeah. A pantry seller? No. No, pantry, no. Because pantry, you open it all the time. Yeah. So like a seller. The key thing. Sell it. Yeah. The key thing, it was a seller above. That's right. That's the same thing as people put their wine racks above their stove. Yeah. Don't do that. Yeah. Take your wine racks out of the kitchen. No, it wasn't. Yes. We didn't put wine that time. I'm talking about, you know, with kids, yeah. No, no, I'm saying that, you know, it's the same, the same thing as, you know, putting things in a pantry to keep them cool because you go in and out, you're, you're ruining the temperature. But people have these wine racks and they'll put wine on top of their fridge, like in the wine rack or in a, and by their stove, that is not good for wine, you know? Mm-hmm. So. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I know what you're talking about. Yeah, that's fine. Who drank wine? Who drank wine? I don't know, man. I don't stop, Ruth. I love my wine. We all want our wine. Great wine. No, but as kids. As kids. No, no. Not as. Not as. Great wine. Well, now when I was a teenager, you know, I'd see if my mom, you know, if I said, Nancy, you want some wine. Oh, I didn't call her Nancy then, you know, and I said, here, I'll be a good kid and top your wine off. Well, you know what I was doing, right? Yeah. I was, you know, Nancy has a party. There's people there and suddenly the kids are bringing the adults wine. You know what the kids are doing. You know what we're all like, taste test, taste test, you know, and then the kids get silly and everybody wonders why and the adults are like, oh, the kids are behaving. No, they're not. No, they're not. You know what we were doing. We were drinking your wine. Or then, you know, then we get really naughty and then you put, you think you can dilute the wine with water, then you get in big trouble. You do not do that. If you're going to steal your parent's wine, you do not do it. Yeah, just rather get in trouble and, but don't ruin the wine. You know, so, um, yeah, just saying, yeah, yeah, so it's, um, yeah, anyway. Yeah. Ruth. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Don't you miss being a kid? It was fun, you know, oh, yeah. It was fun being a kid, but, um, really, we, we got away with stuff kind of, I always got caught. The boy was nice. Yeah. It was better. Yeah. It was easy. Yeah. It was better, but, you know, it was fun, but you know, my mom taught me how to cook at a very young age, you know, and I loved it. You know, I loved baking. I loved cooking and I learned a lot. Yeah. Yeah. You know, you worked here, right? Uh huh. Yeah, I watched her and she taught me and she brought out recipe books. She taught me from recipe books. She taught me how to read recipes and it's good for your math. But you know, this summer, if you can do that with your kids or if grandma and grandpa can help, that's awesome because if, you know, to get your kids to do these kinds of recipes that taste good, it's got enough sweetness for kids. But if they're doing it, it gets their creativity going. They're learning something so that when they're in college, they don't live off a pizza. You know, but I think we're allowed to eat pizza in college, but they, you know, it's, it's a good time of year to get together with your kids and do these kinds of projects, you know, and you're not using heat, right? You've just, you're doing fruit. You know, you don't, once you cut the watermelon open, they can scoop it instead of cut it, you know, if you're worried about knives, you know, so there's so much we can do. It's, it's awesome. It is awesome. I love this recipe, Ruth, and now I'm hungry. Thanks. I want some, I want watermelon. But it's not, it's not too messy, it's not hard, it's good for the kind, it's for the summer. No. And it helps. It helps me. Yeah. And the color is low. I don't think it's low. Well, if you do cook food on a grill outside, you know, salads grill outside, you know, in the dust, that's the way to go food, food is healthy, food is healthy, and there is a lot of food and the, the phrase eat it, eat it and there is tea and there is coffee, there is, it's good, it's good. Yeah. I like it. And you said you could make one with a good beer float. That's kind of cool. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's a good idea. Yeah. I like that. I want to try it with cream soda because I think that would be good. Yeah. Yeah. I will. I will. And he's the food. Right? We need to do it from the food from the backyard. It's really so sweet and delicious. I agree. I think a lot of people are growing melons now. And I think it would work really good, you know, so I, whatever you got in your back garden. Watermelon, so I remember with the watermelon backyard, so sweet. I love it. So sweet. In the, in the vegetable. Mmm. Oh my god. Everything. Well, where we are in Tucson right now, our friend Eva, you know, she comes on radio shows too, um, we're taking care of her garden. She has cantaloupe growing, big cantaloupes. And she's got charred, charred, um, even okra growing in the desert, tomatoes and, you know, so, and she's growing. Is it asparagus? I think she's got it. It's, it's awesome. It's awesome. Very good. It's, it's delicious. When you pick it up, you smell it, or it's, yeah, oh, I, you got to smell it. That's how you know. But what is really, what is really, it's, it's, it's, it's different. Melly. Yeah. Yeah. You can pick it up. You smell it. Mm-hmm. It feels better. It feels better. Yeah, I know. You got to have, and if you grow your own fruit and vegetables, so nice to have the early morning garden walks, you know, see what's going on. And for your kids to know and be part of it, you know, and you can grow your own food and you know where your food comes from. And if you get the heritage, uh, seeds to grow things from the heritage, like, you know, if you do beets, they have, you get the ones that are all circular, like pink and white, kind of like candy striped beets. You get different colored tomatoes, all the different colors and potatoes and different colors. Now they have it. They didn't have it. They didn't have it. Let me go up. Yeah. Yeah. One member of only tomato. Yeah. Yeah. You know, but, well, these actually are really how they were way, way, way in older times, you know, before us, Ruth, um, and that we get like the carrots, the purple carrots, the orange carrots, the, you know, yellow carrots. Kids like that, man. They're like, I'm in. I want that. So I think that's cool. You know, so yeah, good stuff. Well, Ruth, thank you, as always, always fun to have you on the show. Thank you for having me. Thank you for having me. Thank you for having me. Ruth's book is out there now. You can get it. Second edition is beautiful, beautiful colors. And you know, when you look in the open the, you know, see the photos of the food, it just feels very summery when you go in there. So when you get her book, um, it's really a good book for this time of year and every time, all times of year, but it is. So just go to Ruth Milstein dot com. You can get on an Amazon as well. And of course, as I said earlier, this recipe is linked in the episode notes or go to blend radio and TV.com and type in sherbet. And there's no, it's not sherbet. Like I was sherbet. I don't know. Apparently I'm making my own words. So it's not that it's sherbet. All right. Thanks Ruth. You take care. Thank you all for joining us. Thank you so much for having me and thank you for listening to big blend radios cooking with love show featuring Ruth Milstein. Keep up with Ruth and her recipes and her books at Ruth Milstein dot com. You can also keep up with big blend radio at big blend radio dot com. [MUSIC]