A Giada sorbet again -- this time it's Pomegranate and Mint

In less than two weeks, I’m writing about another recipe from Food Network chef Giada De Laurentiis.
   Posting two entries about recipes by the same chef, magazine or cookbook in such a short time frame wouldn’t normally be unusual for me, but this time it is because it’s the second time I’m writing about one of her sorbets.
   Tropical Watermelon Sorbet is what I wrote about on Aug. 12, and now it’s Pomegranate and Mint Sorbet (click for the recipe).
   Giada really knows her sorbets – both of these are very delicious.
   With Tropical Watermelon Sorbet, the lovely taste of watermelon was amplified by dark rum and pineapple juice.
   In Pomegranate and Mint Sorbet, a mint syrup and orange juice are combined with pomegranate juice to produce an elegant, dinner-party worthy dessert that’s truly refreshing and delicious. (It's also the type of sorbet you pull out of the freezer and eat out of the container for a few precious minutes -- I did that a couple of times.)
   One commenter on this recipe on the Food Network website complained that the mint flavor is too overwhelming.
   This couldn’t be farther from the truth. Both my husband and I agreed the mint flavor was absolutely perfect.
   The mint flavor comes from a mint simple syrup, made by boiling and simmering sugar (I used Splenda), fresh mint leaves and water, then letting the mixture cool. It can be refrigerated before using, though it will come out of the fridge much thicker than when it was put in. Stirring it up will get it back to full thick-liquid form again.
   The syrup is then mixed with pomegranate juice (often found in the produce section of the supermarket) and orange juice. Make sure the pomegranate and orange juices are chilled before mixing – it will make the next step, processing it in the ice cream maker, work better.
   I processed the mixture in my ice cream maker for 20 minutes, adding mini semisweet chocolate chips during the last 10 minutes as directed in the recipe.
   After 20 minutes, the mixture was just slush, not a sorbet, but I knew all it needed was to be put in the freezer to become a sorbet. I poured the icy liquid into an airtight container, then put the mixture in the freezer to harden completely, which takes about eight hours.
   A lot of the chocolate chips landed up at the bottom of the ice cream maker in a clump, so I simply scooped them out and stirred them into the mixture in the freezer. However, most of the chocolate chips ended up on the bottom of the container anyway. My advice: Dig deep when serving this sorbet!