Whoa! look what i forgot to do for a while!

Sorry about that. I guess Baking had me really involved these past few weeks. Also, working for nearly 8 hours in an incredibly hot and humid kitchen seems to drain my energy severely. From what I have heard the meat-fab kitchen isn't as bad but we shall see. maybe I'll just start getting used to this level of workload. I hope so.

We did a few attempts at watermelon cucumber sorbet and it did turn out alright but usually too sweet when simple syrup was used to balance the Ph. It turns out the Ph level isn't too important. I think its mostly used to make sorbet that will set at about the same time interval as usual for the ice cream machine. If its off it may cause the liquid to take more or less time to set. We never did reach completion of it in class as i moved onto a different station and had plenty of work to do. I will continue to work on it myself, though. Apparently you can pick up a Cuisinart ice cream maker for a fairly decent price. I wont be buying it right away, however, as I have already spent quite a bit of money recently and need to conserve. so, for now it get written down until I can get around to it.

If anyone want to give it a try basically all you need is cucumber and watermelon juice. The part we were last on was figuring out the proper ratio to get the sweetness of the watermelon without overpowering the flavor and freshness of the cucumber. In fact, cucumber juice on its own can be quite nice and might make a refreshing sorbet on its own. OH! I just had a thought... maybe you could just do cucumber sorbet but serve it in a piece of watermelon shaped into a bowl and chilled. If you want some Tang in the sorbet a good dose of lemon juice could do the job. We also made a small batch with a bit of lemon juice and a dash of ascorbic acid to give it a good kick. I haven't tried it yet but I had a thought that crushed lemon flavored hard candy sprinkled over a serving might have a good taste and give a bit more color for the eyes. Also, we did try a version with salt since some people do like salt on their watermelon but we used too much and decided to shelve that version for the time being.

To make the cucumber and watermelon juice isn't too difficult. First, you want to wash before you cut the cucumber and watermelon just to prevent any materials or chemicals from getting passed into the flesh when you cut it up. Skin (a peeler works well) as many cucumbers as you want and rough chop them. you can leave the seed in because you are going to puree it in a blender and strain it either with a fine mesh strainer or if you don't have one of those a large coffee filter. Possibly many coffee filters depending on how much juice you have decided to make. To strain it place the puree in your strainer and push it against the sides. If some of the solid pass through you can always strain again with a coffee filter. If you start with the coffee filter put in only enough that you can wrap the filter closed and squeeze the juice from it. depending on the durability of the filter you may need to be gentle or it will tear. Not the end of the world, though. Unless it was your last filter and the store is closed for holiday.

You should probably start with about a quarter of a watermelon as you will get a ton of juice just from that quarter. Remove the watermelon flesh from the rind just as you did with the cucumber and rough chop it small enough to fit into a blender as well or use a method that works for larger pieces. Ripe watermelon is so soft just about any technique will work for juicing. Heck, yelling at it would probably juice it as well but I imagine you can find a speedier method.

Oh! I just remembered a tip for picking out the best fruits from my instructors. Use your usual methods to weed out the unripe and damaged and when you are down to a few to choose from if they are about the same size its best to weigh them as the riper the the fruit the more water it is carrying and it will be the heavier of the bunch.

Anyway, once you have your juice all you have to do is pick a ratio of watermelon to cucumber and give it a go. As I recall we mostly tried a 1:1 ratio and it usually resulted in the watermelon overpowering the cucumber. While not bad we wanted to balance the flavors more. So, you may want to try a ratio of 1:1.5 or 1:2 and see how it comes out.

Now, I will be talking about how baking went soon but I feel a need to do something else for a bit and didn't think this all did any good sitting as a saved draft until I get back to it.