Rhubarb Granita
With the arrival of summer (and the accompanying warmer weather!), granita (an Italian ice dessert) is a great refreshment option that doesn’t require much work. Here’s a recipe for rhubarb granita, since rhubarb’s in season right now. This same recipe can work with many other fruits as well, though I’d cut the sugar by about half.
1 cup sugar
1 cup rhubarb, washed and chopped into 1” chunks
2 cups water
1. Bring the sugar and water to a boil in a saucepan over medium heat, stirring occasionally.
2. Once the sugar has dissolved, add the rhubarb and cook for about 10 minutes, until the rhubarb is soft enough that you can squish it using the back of a spoon.
3. Remove from heat, and blend the rhubarb until there are no chunks left. It’s easiest to do this with an immersion (stick) blender, if you’ve got one. If you don’t have this, you can do it in a stand blender (be careful, since it’s hot!), or even just use a potato masher. The rhubarb will be soft enough to break up easily.
4. Strain the liquid through a fine mesh sieve into a shallow baking dish or tin. By the way, you can save the rhubarb solids and use them as a topping for ice cream, pancakes, or something similar — it’s more or less the rhubarb equivalent of applesauce!
5. Put the liquids in the freezer. Once things start getting icy, scrape the surface with a fork to shave the ice into smaller crystals. Do this every hour or so for a few hours until everything’s frozen.
6. Enjoy! | 
