Strawberry and Mascarpone Granita

From Everyday Italian via foodnetwork.com



Ingredients:
1 cup water
1/2 cup sugar, plus 1 tablespoon
1/2 cup chopped fresh mint leaves
2 cups chopped strawberries, plus 1 cup finely chopped
1/2 cup mascarpone cheese
3 tablespoons lemon juice
Pinch salt

Directions:
Place the water, 1/2 sugar, and mint in a small pan and bring to a simmer, stirring occasionally to help dissolve the sugar. Let simmer over low heat to steep the mint. Then strain the mint from the simple syrup. Discard the mint.

In a food processor combine 2 cups of strawberries with the remaining 1 tablespoon of sugar. Run the machine to puree the strawberries. Add the mascarpone cheese, lemon juice, and salt. Run the machine until the mascarpone cheese is fully incorporated. Add the mint simple syrup and run the machine to combine. Place the strawberry mixture in an 8 by 8-inch glass dish and place the dish in the freezer. The mixture will take about 4 hours to freeze.

To serve, use a fork to scrape the granita. Spoon the mixture into chilled bowls. Top with the finely chopped strawberries. Serve immediately.

Comments:
Ok, first off, the Cooking Channel is just evil. Like I needed another channel to veg out in front of. It shows retro episodes of pretty much every Food Network show along with some new ones - mostly English it seems. Argh.

Anywho, this was from an Everyday Italian episode I saw yesterday. Since it's strawberry season and we bought an obscene amount of strawberries from our local farm stand, I figured this would be a nice way to make use of some of them. It's pretty easy (given you don't tip your food processor when it's full of the strawberry puree mixture and create a pink, sticky mess all over the countertop, down the cabinets, and on the floor. Not that I did that. Just saying.) and tastes great. It melts really quickly though so you have to eat it fast.