Strawberry And Star Anise Sorbet (raw/vegan)

I'm so far behind with my posts of late, it's rather embarrassing... Till this evening, anytime I sit down to write up a post, my work phone rings. I've still had time to cook, just not anything complex. Thankfully this evening has been a little quieter and I hope I will now be able to start catching up with a few quick, short posts.

Earlier in the week I made a batch of strawberry sorbet. The flavours of star anise and strawberry go together really well and I just love the smell of star anise so jump at any opportunity to use it. I've also found myself making more raw food of late, so rather than make a sorbet with a boiled sugar syrup to infuse the star anise quickly, I left the star anise to sit in lime juice for a few hours to infuse the flavour.

Star anise - it smells awesome and looks cool too

Strawberry and Star Anise sorbet:
This made about half a litre of sorbet.
Ingredients

• 3 punnets of strawberries (750grams)
• 2 limes
• 3 star anise
• 1/3 cup of agave (double this if you prefer a sweeter sorbet, I prefer mine a little tart)

Method

1. Zest and juice the limes, setting the zest aside for later.
2. Crush the star anise a little bit and add to the lime juice. Leave this to sit covered for a few hours to infuse. I left mine for 4 hours. If you do not want to wait, gently heat the juice a little to reduce the infusing time.
3. Remove the star anise from the lime juice. 
4. Place strawberries, lime juice, zest and agave into a blender and puree. 

If you have an icecream maker, follow the makers instructions to churn your sorbet.
If like me you don't have one, you can get great textured sorbet by doing the following:

• Pour the mix into a baking tray and place it in the freezer.
• When mix is nearly frozen, scrape it back into the blender and blend till smooth. Pour the mix back into the tray and return it to the freezer. 
• Repeat this process 2-3 times then scape the mix into a storage container and return to the freezer for a couple of hours before eating.

Yum!