Originally I had planned and still plan to make a strawberry champagne sorbet but, since that would mean I'd have a 3rd mostly full open bottle of wine in my fridge, I decided to just use more of the white wine I bought for the peach sorbet. You use what you like, but if you're not making as many batches of this stuff as me, I recommend trying a nice dry Champagne for this recipe.

Strawberry Champagne Sorbet
An adaptation from my very own brain

• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup dry Champagne
• 1 1/2 to 2 lbs. fresh (or thawed, frozen) strawberries
• 3 tablespoons fresh squeezed orange juice

Directions:

1. Stir sugar and Champagne in small saucepan. Bring to boil over medium-high heat, stirring until the sugar dissolves.
2. Boil 1 minute.
3. Transfer syrup to large bowl. Chill in refrigerator until syrup is cold, about 3 hours.
4. Working in batches, puree strawberries, cold syrup, orange juice and orange rind in a blender until smooth.
5. Strain into another large bowl to remove the seeds and any lumps.
6. Process the strawberry mixture in an ice-cream maker according to manufacturer's instructions.
7. Transfer sorbet to container. Cover and freeze until firm, about 6 hours. (Can be made 1 week ahead. Keep frozen.)

About this recipe: I decided to use freshly squeeze orange juice from a rather forlorn orange that's been on my counter for a while. It wasn't very large and was a tiny bit dried out but it still yielded 3 tablespoons of orange juice.

I used closer to 2 pounds of fresh strawberries (no frozen this time) which was almost 4 entire pints. When I'd pureed the 1 and a half pounds with the wine syrup it was rather wet looking so that's when I decided to add a pit more. It took on a more plump, pulpy look after adding another good handful so I was happy. Don't be afraid to use the less ripe looking strawberries. The wine syrup will offset the tartness giving you a nice balance.

I put my pureed mixture into the fridge overnight and froze it the next evening. I think this made the difference and is why the peach sorbet froze so much better than the blackberry. This one froze nicely as well. Since I added extra berries, I also ended up with about a cup more sorbet in the end.

The result: a fresh, natural strawberry flavored sorbet that is light, crisp, a little tart and sweet. I liked this a lot. I usually hate strawberry anything for the simple fact that I hate the fake, overdone taste and smell of strawberry flavoring. This sorbet is how strawberry sorbet should taste in a perfect world.

I'm really enjoying making all of these sorbets. They are really easy to make and have all turned out well and taste quite different from one another. Fresh raspberries are more plentiful at the grocery store so I might try that next, or, I may start experimenting with fruit combos to see which ones go together well. Also, I thought some kind of apple sorbet might be an interesting challenge. So far my favorite is still the blackberry Cabernet closely followed by the strawberry.