One of my favorite things about wintertime is the profusion of citrus fruits. I can stuff myself day after day with navel oranges, honey tangerines, ruby red grapefruits, clementines, blood oranges - you name it, I'll eat it.

I suppose, if nothing else, I'll never get scurvy.

That being said, I found myself with a few too many fruits the other day. I had forgotten about the five pound bag of oranges I'd bought one day and came home the next with an eight pound bag. That's a few too many for our house even.

After indulging in fresh squeezed orange juice for a couple days I decided to make a navel orange sorbet. However, even though my ice cream maker attachment was frozen solid and my sorbet base was chilled thoroughly, it refused to set up. I fell back on popsicles, but even then they weren't too my liking. The navel oranges just don't offer enough in complexity of flavor to make a satisfying frozen treat. Best eaten directly out of hand, or squeezed.

I took the rest of my sorbet base and added a couple other fruits I had lying around the house and froze it granita style.

Oh. My.

I'm not a huge fan of frozen treats (sensitive teeth), but even I was sinking my teeth into this one. The flavor is amazing, the texture to die for, and it's an all around summer-in-the-mouth kind of feeling.

A bite of this and I'm reminded that winter doesn't last forever and everything won't always be an ugly shade of brown. I think this may be my standard winter pick-me-up from now on.

What do you like to treat yourself to in the winter to ward off Jack Frost? Share your favorites in the comments section below.

Tropical Fruit Granita

Yields approximately 12 1/2 cup servings

2 cups fresh squeezed orange juice

20 oz. can of crushed pineapple

juice of one grapefruit

juice of one lemon

1/2 cup sugar

1 tablespoon vodka (optional)

Put the sugar in a saucepan and add just enough orange juice to saturate. Heat over medium flame until the sugar dissolves and pour it back into the rest of the orange juice. Mix all remaining ingredients together and freeze solid. Let sit on the counter at room temperature for at least fifteen minutes before serving. Best scooped by scraping with a fork or the side of the ice cream scoop.

Nutritional Estimate

This is a nutritional estimate, regard it as such.

1 serving = 1/2 cup or 100-110 grams

90 calories

20 g carbohydrate

0 g fat

0 g protein