Let's Have A Toast

I had a big plan to make some of Kim Boyce's rye-crust tarts with a strawberry rhubarb compote this weekend, but sometimes things just don't turn out the way you plan.

Instead, they turn out better.

Faced with half an hour to make a summery dessert I grabbed my ice cream maker, a lemon, the strawberries I'd intended for the tart, and...wait for it...champagne.  Opa!  Summer time!  Let's raise a glass, shall we?

Usually when I make a pint of sorbet or ice cream it lasts us for..a week, at least.  But this pint lasted...between three people... twenty minutes.  Actually, less than that, but who's counting?  I'm fortunate enough to have snagged a quick photo or I might have assumed I'd have dreamed the whole thing up.  Summer is here!  I can feel it in the air, and I captured this pic to prove I had in my hands, too, for a few minutes at least.

Strawberries, lemons, mint, champagne.  Could it get any better?  I think not.  Especially when this goodness is mushed about, frozen, and still tickles your mouth with the last bit of bubbly that makes champagne so extravagantly lovely and fun.   Friends, I have brought you summer, just in time, but now you can cheers with your spoons rather than glasses; besides, drinking champagne now seems so last season.  Let's dig into this Strawberry Lemon Champagne Sorbet with spoons instead.

Cheers, summer of 2012.  Cheers indeed.