Pink Lemonade Granita - Pink Saturday



From the kitchen of One Perfect Bite...Years ago, some folks affectionately named their cars. It was throwback to the days when horses pulled the family wagon. I came from that kind of family and, to this day, cars in our family are given names. I call mine Bessie. I must admit that I've carried the naming of inanimate object even further. My computer also has a name. We call her Carmen. I've just brought Carmen back from a 48 hour stay in the emergency room at the Geek Squad hospital. She's a headstrong flirt and, despite repeated warnings, she invited trouble with a virus that seems to have come from Facebook. She has been very, very sick but the guys brought her back from the brink of self-destruction and she's lived to blog another day. Beware of requests that come from Facebook, especially those that pop-up and ask if you want to share or approve a new follower. The request may or not be legitimate. I'm now a couple of hundred dollars in the hole but a lot wiser than I was on Friday. Carmen has been grounded. This is probably the latest Pink Saturday post since the inception of the meme. I am sorry, but it could not be helped. Today's feature is a simple palate cleanser that I think you'll enjoy. Let's get right to it. Here's the recipe.

Pink Lemonade Granita...from the kitchen of One Perfect Bite, courtesy of Nicole Plue

Ingredients:

1-1/2 cups water
3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
3/4 cup fresh lemon juice (from 3 to 4 lemons)
2 teaspoons grenadine

Directions:

1) Combine water, sugar, lemon juice, and grenadine in a medium bowl. Stir with a large spoon or whisk until sugar has thoroughly dissolved, about 1 minute.
2) Pour mixture into a 9-inch-square shallow baking pan. This pan size works best ­because it provides a large surface area, a key point in speeding up freezing process. To further hasten freezing, use a metal pan (metal conducts cold well).
Put pan in freezer and stir every 30 minutes, being sure to scrape ice crystals off sides and into middle of pan, until mixture is too frozen to stir, about 3 hours, depending on how cold your freezer is (some granitas can freeze in as ­little as 1 hour). Use tines of a large dinner fork to stir, scrape and break up ice crystals.
3) Cover pan with plastic and freeze over­night. When ready to serve granita, place a fork at the top of the dish and pull it toward you in rows, moving from left to right ­and ­rotating the pan as well. Scape up the shaved ice and fill your chilled glasses or bowls. Yield: 4 cups shaved ice.

This post is being linked to:
Pink Saturday, sponsored by Beverly at How Sweet the Sound.