Like many college students, I’ve moved back home for the summer. When I haven’t been busy with classes and engaging in tomfoolery with people whom I’ve called friends since, well, before puberty, I’ve been busying myself with catching up on my poetry writing, looking for jobs and walking the dog. Occasionally, my remarkably productive days are punctuated by spontaneous spurts of brilliant cookery. In fact, I was overtaken by such a stroke of culinary brilliance this very morning.
By ten o’clock this morning, my house was already 90 degrees F – typical of most summer days in my hometown. Covered in sweat, I rolled out of my bed and dove into the shower. As I was lathered up and rinsed off, I wondered out loud:
Should I have tequila-laced strawberry gelato for breakfast? Is that allowed?
At that moment, memories of my strict, mostly sugar-free childhood came back to haunt me. Days past of diluted apple juice and being taunted by my classmates for not being allowed to eat Capt’n Crunch for breakfast made me recoil at the very idea of consuming gelato alongside my scrambled eggs. Even as a twenty-one year-old, I felt as if I had committed some major transgression by daring to consume ice cream’s sexier, silkier Italian cousin for breakfast.
However, my moment of self-doubt was brief. I reasoned that eating gelato for breakfast was imperative to my well-being – if I couldn’t cool myself off, I’d be in dire straits – so I granted myself permission to cool myself off by any means necessary.
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I ended up adapting a simple strawberry gelato by Lael Hazan. Be sure to freeze the gelato for at least 20-30 minutes before you eat it so you don’t end up with a soupy, Pepto-colored, tequila-flavored mess.
Strawberry-Anejo Gelato
Yield: about one quart.
3 cups fresh strawberries
¾ cup granulated sugar
¾ cup cold water
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lime juice
About 3 tablespoons tequila anejo (Patrón, if you have it, but really any tequila will do)
½ cup heavy whipping cream
- Wash and hull strawberries.
- Blend strawberries and sugar in a food processor and process until smooth Add water, lime juice and booze and blend until completely mixed.
- Whip the cream with a whisk until it is the consistency of whipped cream (soft peaks). Fold strawberry mixture into whipped cream and mix thoroughly. Don’t beat it to death-you’re trying to keep the whipped cream as light and fluffy as you can.
- Pour the mixture into an ice cream maker and run the mixer for 15-20 minutes, or until the gelato is firm, creamy, and light pink.
- Scoop into freezer-safe container and freeze before eating.
SUPER like!
I had a feeling you would like this one.
do you have any suggestions on a good cheap ice cream maker and food processor?
I love my Cuisinart ICE-20 Automatic 1-1/2-Quart Ice-Cream Maker, White
and will soon be doing a review on it, so keep an eye out for that.