I’ve been curious about Meyer lemons for some time now.  I’ve found lots of recipes that use them, but I had never seen them in my supermarket until recently. I actually found a big, beautiful bag of Meyer lemons at Costco the other day so I grabbed them. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with them when I picked them up, but I figured I’d find something.

Lucky for me, the bag of Meyer lemons coincided with a delivery of 2 pineapples from Harry and David’s.  My sister-in-law gives me an annual subscription to their fruit-of-the-month club and I must admit that it’s one of my favorite Christmas presents.  I receive a box of perfectly ripe fruit each month. One box is better than the next.

I cut the pineapples into chunks as soon as they arrived, and my boys ate some of them. We were about half-way through the chunks when I found this recipe. My husband was thrilled because at least once the bowl of pineapple chunks got knocked over in the refrigerator leaving a sticky mess.

I made a mistake when I made this recipe. I neglected to melt the sugar so I just dumped the granulated sugar into the fruit mixture and the resulting sorbet was still delicious.  I also chose not to add the full amount of sugar.   My pineapple was very sweet, so I only added 3/4 cup of sugar and found it to be perfect.   Next time I think I’ll start with 1/2 cup of sugar and add additional sugar as necessary.

Several of my boys gobbled this up.  One noticed the microscopic pieces of lemon zest in the sorbet and rejected it without trying it. It was definitely his loss.

Pineapple and Meyer Lemon Sorbet
Recipe from Joanne Weir, More Cooking in the Wine Country

3 Meyer, Eureka, or Lisbon lemons
1 ripe pineapple, peeled, cored, and cut into chunks
1 cup sugar**

Grate 2 tablespoons lemon zest and reserve. Juice the lemons and reserve the juice separately. Place the lemon juice and the pineapple chunks in a blender and puree until smooth. Strain through a fine-mesh strainer into a large measuring cup. Add the reserved zest and stir together. You should have about 4 cups of puree. For each 4 cups of puree, measure 1 cup sugar. (** My pineapple was so sweet that I chose to only use 3/4 cup of sugar.)

Place approximately 1/4 of the puree in a saucepan. Add the sugar and stir over medium heat until the mixture is simmering and the sugar has melted. Add this to the remaining puree and stir together. Place in the refrigerator and chill until cold.

Freeze according to the instructions for your ice cream maker.

Yield:  ~1 quart