Dessert Wars- Green

I have decided to join a progressive blogger competition Dessert Wars. Dessert Wars is a progressive blogger competition with a monthly winner who will go head to head at the end of the year (December) to secure the position of ULTIMATE DESSERT WARRIOR and win a grand prize package. Each month you will be challenged with a theme ingredient and/or a specific dessert to bake. For example; one month we may ask you to use lavender in a dessert, the next month it might be to bake a pie. This will leave room for you to express your own creativity. The more creatively you embrace the theme, the more likely you are to win.

I am really excited about participating in this competition; I am looking forward to all the challenges and solving them. The theme for March is green in honor of St. Patrick's Day. We were given 2 lists of green ingredients and instructed to pick at least one from each list for our dessert. I was super excited when I learned about the theme because green is my favorite color and my birthday is in March. In some weird way, I felt like it was a special birthday challenge just for me.

After looking through the ingredients and brainstorming with my husband Pat I decided the thing to do would be a trio of sorbets. Pat thought that we ought to incorporate watermelon because they are so lovely and green. I pointed out that they had red flesh and that you can't eat the green part, but in the end I agreed that we could try to use watermelon. I have never made sorbet before, and we don't have an ice cream machine. I did some research and found some lovely recipes to help get me started though. I very rarely follow recipes but I often use them as a starting point especially when trying something new.I found a delicious looking recipe for Cucumber sorbet from Healthy Green Kitchen, and a great tutorial for making sorbet from Simply Cooking To get me started.

This lovely Neopolitan Granita is what we came up with:

Cucumber Spinach Sorbet

Cucumber sorbet is lovely and refreshing but I wanted a brighter green color and a little more flavor than I could get with just cucumbers. The idea of adding a bit of spinach came to me and it worked perfectly.

3 cups cucumbers, peeled and diced

2 Tbs Coconut Milk

1/4 cup Maple Syrup

1/2 cup Spinach, raw coarsely chopped

Puree cucumbers, coconut milk and spinach until smooth. Add maple syrup and mix through.

Pour into a freezer-safe container with a lid.Place in freezer and freeze until solid. Remove from freezer about 15-20 mins before serving. The mixture won't really stay in nice balls because it wasn't churned until creamy. We ended up using a fork to bust the block into tiny crystals.

Watermelon Sorbet

3-4 cups Watermelon diced

2 Tbs granulated sugar

2-3 mint leaves

Puree Watermelon--strain through a fine mesh strainer to remove seeds. Return puree to blender add sugar and mix through. Add mint leaves and blend until thoroughly combined.

Place in freezer and freeze until solid. Remove from freezer about 15-20 mins before serving.

Honeydew and Rosemary Sorbet

2-3 cups diced honeydew melon

3 Tbs honey

2 Tbs coconut milk

3/4 Tbs fresh rosemary, diced

Puree honeydew, coconut milk, honey and rosemary. Place in freezer and freeze until solid. Remove from freezer about 15-20 mins before serving.

The March prize package includes:

Whisk and cupcake necklace from Moon & Star Designs

Beanilla Sampler Pack of Vanilla Beans

Lenox Personalized Musical Cupcake

1,000 ideas for Decorating Cupcakes, Cookies & Cakes

Organic Valley $50 Gift Certificate

Organic Prairie $50 Gift Certificate

Theme Kitchen $50 Gift Certificate

BEKA Cookware Crepe Pan