Coconut Sorbet

Well hello there! Happy January! It's been awhile. I hope your holiday shuffle wasn't too stressful. And I hope Santa brought you what you really wanted. I found some shiny new things under the tree I'm pretty excited about. And now I'm ready to take charge of this whole new year.

I'm not a fan of New Year's resolutions. I think most people set themselves up for failure by making lofty resolutions year after year, then beat themselves up when they inevitably fail a month or less in. January is the worst time to go on a diet, when it's cold and your body wants to store up fat for warmth.

I do think the new year is a fine time to assess yourself and your current situation, and create goals for the coming year. Especially using positive language, like "I will (action to take)" instead of "I will not (smoke, eat junk food, etc etc)." I set lots of goals at the beginning of each year, and do my best to develop long-term plans for success for each one. Some succeed, some fail. But I never beat myself up if they don't work out. I find someone else to blame, then beat them up. (I kid, I kid...)

For 2011, I've decided one of those goals is to maintain a healthy vegan diet. I decided on my birthday last year that I wanted to slowly transition back to a plant-based diet. I've been reading lots of websites, magazines, and books on the vegan lifestyle, and I really feel like I'm educating myself on the subject in a way my 20-year-old junk-food vegan-self never did. My diet is almost completely vegan, with only a few slip-ups during the holidays with my Grandma's stuffing and cookies. And I feel much better than I did when I was still sneaking cheese and eating the occasional egg. But there's definitely room for improvement.

A secondary, but complementary, goal is to eat less pre-packaged foods and eat more whole foods: grains, beans and vegetables. That means more cooking. And we all know how I feel about cooking. So my plan is simple: try 2 new vegan recipes every week. One savory, and one sweet. I'll pull recipes from cookbooks on my shelf, from other blogs in my reader, and of course, I'll gladly take suggestions from you, my lovely readers. I'll keep them mostly simple, quick dishes that I can add to my weekly repertoire, and once a month I'll tackle a more difficult or time-consuming recipe.

But you came here for the sorbet, right? Let's get on with it. I love coconut sorbet. I had a slight obsession with it last year. It's carried over into 2011, and I don't see it ending anytime soon. But it's a slightly expensive habit. Thankfully Santa brought me just what I needed to start making my own.

Despite the snow and ice on the ground in Philly, I decided to break in my new ice cream maker with some coconut sorbet. This recipe is ridiculously simple, and ridiculously delicious. My kind of treat! The hard part will be keeping myself from eating a whole batch every day...

Coconut Sorbet

2 14oz cans of Coconut Milk
1 cup sugar
1 cup unsweetened shredded coconut

Combine all ingredients in a medium sauce pan over medium heat, and bring to a boil. Stir occasionally. Once boils, remove from heat and allow to chill completely. This will take a few hours, possibly overnight. To speed up the process, you can transfer the mixture to another container and place in the fridge. Once the mixture is chilled completely, freeze according to your ice cream maker's instructions.

If you have a 1.5 quart or smaller ice cream maker, you'll want to make half this recipe. In my 1.5 quart ice cream maker, the mix almost overflowed. If you have a 2 quart model, you'll be fine.

Mental Health Day... I can has?

I'd love to say that I'm not posting a real post this weekend because I'm at the shore. I'd love to say that I'm just too busy having an awesome time enjoying this gorgeous weekend with my sweetie and friends. I'd love to say that I'm having a long, relaxing holiday weekend to help pull myself together, and get out of the funk that I've been in all week. But it's not true. I'm stuck working my retail job all weekend. RETAIL! ALL HOLIDAY WEEKEND!! I really hope you guys are having a much better weekend than me, so that I can live vicariously through you. 

So while I'm desperately waiting for my day off on Wednesday, a new channel is launching this weekend: The Cooking Channel. I've seen the ads on Food Network, and I've gotta say, I'm pretty excited about it. (Listen, I know I'm a foodie dork, so you can stop judging me now.)  They've got the line up for the launch on their site.

Things that excite me about this: 

1. It appears they have a baking show. 

2. From the little research I've done, it looks like they're vegetarian and vegan friendly, and are working on getting a vegan show.

3. There's whole shows dedicated to ethnic foods, and booze. 

4. There's a picture of Julia Child in that promo. Reruns of the French Chef? YES PLEASE!

Now, I watch a lot of food network, but I've been saying for awhile that there's some things that seem to be missing from their line-up, and it appears the Cooking Channel will be filling all those gaps and then some (see numbers 1-3). 

Also, Cooking Channel, if you're looking for someone to host a vegan baking show, I'm ready, willing, and available. I'm also adorable, well-spoken, and have a background in theater. Just sayin...