Daring Cooks April Challenge: Edible Containers - Lime & Mint Sorbet bowls and Pasta Cannoli

I'm late again this month and I apologize for that, but this time it's not about bad time managment but nasty visitors. I catched a stomach flu at work and was battling agains fever, chills and nausea the last two days. Not to speak of a big antipathy of food of all kinds - I even couldn't stand the taste and smell of my toothpaste. So I hope you don't mind me sharing late ...

Renata of Testado, Provado & Aprovado! was our Daring Cooks’ April 2011 hostess. Renata challenged us to think “outside the plate” and create our own edible containers! Prizes are being awarded to the most creative edible container and filling, so vote on your favorite from April 17th to May 16th at http://thedaringkitchen.com!

The  challenge was to make edible containers of all kind, so I went a little bit nuts.There were lots of suggestions, from bread bowls to noodle salad bowls and other nice things. The idea of fresh food, salsa and smoked salmon had been haunting my mind for a while and I tried to find a edible container suitiable for that dish. Than I had a look at my ice cream machine - and I thought 'I guess you can make bowls from sorbet too'. I used my silicone muffin moulds and some plastic drinking cups (the ones you can buy for parties) which I cut  to a height of about 4 cm and used as my second mould.

I - Lime & mint sorbet bowls
makes 24 bowls

• 560 ml water
• three small branches mint leaves
• 100 g sugar
• one tablespoon aquavit (optional)
• zest of one lime
• 180 ml freshly squeezed lime juice
  

Put 24 mint leaves aside for decoration. Place the rest into a heat proof mug. Heat your water just before boiling point and pour over the leaves. Let cool for about ten minutes, add sugar and stirr until dissolved. Let cool completely. Remove the mint leaves and add aquavit, zest and lime juice, place the mug into your refridgerator and let cool overnight.

Moisten the remaining mint leaves and press onto the side of your silicone moulds (see beneath). Put into your freezer until needed.

When cooled, put the sorbet mixture into your ice cream machine and freeze according to manufactors instructions. When ready, fill into the silicone moulds and press the cut cups into the sorbet until the filling level between the moulds is even. Freeze another eight to twelve ours. Carefully remove from the muffin mould and remove plastic cup before serving (you can remove the inner cup when completely frozen and 'stack' the remaining bowls into a plastic bag so they don't take so much space).

Serving suggestion: Salsa and smoked salmon

• smoked salmon, thinly sliced
• bread or potatoes to serve

for the salsa:

• juice of one lime
• one ripe avocado, peeled, cut into small cubes
• a handfull cocktail tomatoes, cut into small cubes
• half a bell pepper, deseeded, cut into small cubes (optional)
• one spring onion, cut into stripes 
• one pepperoni, deseeded, cut into small cubes
• one tablespoon avocado oil
• salt and pepper

Mix all ingredients, salt and pepper to taste. Transfer into your sorbet bowl, arrange onto a plate with the salmon and bread/potatoes and serve immediately.

II - Pasta Cannoli: Despite that I hate frying, I wanted to try out my newly bought cannoli tubes, so why not fry pasta  - I had seen that for a dessert (fried lasagne sheets with vanilla ice between) long time ago. The result was really tasty and crispy and remided me a little bit of cornflakes.

II - Pasta Cannoli

• tagliatelle* (about 10 g uncooked pasta per cannoli tube)
• oil for frying

*You can use other pasta as linguini or spaghetti too.
Cook the tagliatelle according to the package instructions. When done, drain the pasta and flush with cold water until cooled. Coat your cannoli tubes with a thin layer of oil. Wrap two layers of tagliatelle around your cannoli tubes - if you are planning to prepare more than 10 tubes, ask someone to help you or cook smaller batches - otherwise the remaining pasta will start sticking together. Put the tubes on a rack or flat plate and let dry nearly completely - if you want to fasten the process, put your plate into the baking oven set to 50°C for about 20-30 minutes. If you don't dry the pasta, you'll get a frying disaster, because water and oil do not like each other that much ...
In a small pan, heat your oil to 180°C. Fry each cannoli tube for one to two minutes from each side until golden brown. Let drain on paper towels and when cooled enough to handle, carefully remove the tube.

Filling suggestion - Tomato & eggplant curd cheese

I originally wanted to make the filling too (and take a picture of course) but with all my food dislike mentioned above, I couldn't do it. So I am just sharing the recipe and hope you will like it. It is a mixture of favourite ingredients and recipes, for example my all-time-favourite tomato sauce Jamie-Oliver-style and grilled eggplants I started to love after making one of Bea's great recipes, stuffed eggplants.

In Germany, I recognised, we have some food I miss(ed) when abroad, like curd cheese, also known as 'Quark'. It's a kind of cream cheese and you can buy it here in the local supermarkets in a variety of versions - different fat contents and flavours, sweet and savoury. A popular and 'poor-mans-dish' here are potatoes and curd cheese (Kartoffeln und Quark), potatoes boiled with skin, served with chopped onions and the pure curd cheese. Some versions add herbs to the cheese as chives or parsley. Another well-known savoury version is with horseradish, but of course you can by nearly everything: Tomato-, pepper-, radish-, onion- or walnut-flavoured ones. The sweet versions are loved by children and eaten for dessert - my childhood memories everytime come come back when eating a 'Leckermäulchen' - and of course used for baking our famous 'Käsekuchen'. That is why I choose to use a curd cheese filling (I like especially the fresh ones from the farmers market) - but you can substitute with cream cheese or ricotta cheese.

• 200 ml of your favourite tomato sauce
• one small eggplant
• salt and pepper
• olive oil
• 250 g curd cheese

Half your eggplant, brush with oil, salt and pepper and bake in your oven at 180°C for about 20 minutes until soft. Mash/puree and mix with your tomato sauce. Let cool. Stir in the curd cheese, salt and pepper to taste.