Cranberry Lime Green Tea Granita

Oh my this is good, I mean really good!! Think the best shaved ice ever but with more flavor. This dessert came about when I was doing some true pantry busting. It was frickin hot out and I wanted something really refreshing for me and my boys! I scoured the fridge, freezer and pantry and came up with a bag of frozen cranberries that had been jammed in my freezer since Thanksgiving [I can almost confidently say that it was even from this past Thanksgiving], a half-used container of lime juice [good organic stuff not creepy juice from a faux plastic lime ], sugar and some green tea. I remembered when my good friend Anna made me hibiscus tea granita [strong hibiscus tea with and slowly frozen]. It got me thinking that granita is an awesome pantry buster- take whatever tea or juice you want, add in some fruit, if you want and however and whatever type of sweetener you want and you got yourself a good time.

Cranberry Lime Green Tea Granita
8 green tea bags [I used Celestial Seasons Blackberry Pomegranate Green Tea]
4 c boiling water
1 c. sugar
1 c. frozen, fresh cranberries
7 T lime juice
6 ice cubes

Steep the tea bags in boiling water for 2 minutes. Remove tea bags.

Stir in sugar until sugar has dissolved.

Add frozen cranberries to liquid. Allow to defrost in liquid. *You can absolutely use fresh cranberries. I had leftover ones that I had frozen. I thought that by adding them to the liquid, I would help expedite the cooling down process.

Once cranberries have defrosted, add them and a few tablespoons of the liquid to a blender or food processor. Pulse until pureed, about 15 seconds.

Stir cranberry puree, lime juice and ice cubes into the liquid. You can sub about a 1/2 c. of water for the ice cubes, but I was trying to come up with more tricks for expediting the cooling down process.

Once the ice cubes have dissolved, pour your mixture into a shallow baking dish and place in your freezer.

Now all you have to do is wait, and “stir” occasionally with a fork to break up the ice into what looks like shaved ice.

My mixture didn’t begin developing ice until an hour and a half into the freezing process.

I stirred and broke up at that point and continued to do so about every 45 minutes after that. Below is a picture of the granita about 45 minutes before I called it done.

It took about 4 hours of freezing and occasional stirring to yield my granita.

Once frozen, you can move the mixture to a tupperware and keep in your freezer...it will continue to freeze so I recommend eating pretty quickly after the 4 hours! The perfect summer dessert!

Too bad that my family hated it and could barely force it down!