Dish of the Day: Strawberry Frozen Yogurt

Look at this sweet little scoop. Pretty in Pink!!

I'm in love with my new Cuisinart compressor ice cream maker, the ICE-50BCC. It makes frozen treats in minutes. We really love our ice cream in this house but it's often so heavy and I assumed too sugary. I wanted to try and make a healthier version. I'm learning, however, that the heavier cream recipes make the more delectable ice creams. Think Safeway ice cream versus Haagen-Dazs. The Safeway stuff is lower in calories, and is much less indulgent-tasting because it's just milk and flavouring. The higher-end ice creams that taste super-creamy and heavy tend to be made with custard. They start off with heavy cream and egg yolks which is slowly cooked and cooled before being made into ice cream. Hence the heavier taste.

I like that creamy mouth-feel, but not the heavy feeling in my stomach afterward. So I'm working on that. I'd like to try keeping in the eggs, but maybe losing all that whipped cream; it's just too rich. Or experimenting with other thickeners, such as seaweed products.

Here is a recipe for a very light and fruity frozen yogurt. I'm going to try it again with a higher fat Greek-style yogurt. I think you can get 12% or higher nowadays and that might make it creamier.

Strawberry Frozen Yogurt

- Take 1 box of strawberries (generally a quart) and slice into small pieces and cover with 1/3 cup of berry sugar (fine granulated).

- Let stand on the counter for about an hour and stir with a spoon occasionally to bring out the juices.

- Then place in food processor with a full tub (e.g. 750 ml) of plain yogurt; NOT non-fat. I used Astro's 7% Balkan yogurt. Puree. Sprinkle in 3 single-serve packages of Stevia, 1/2 tsp ground cardamon and 1 tsp of fresh lemon juice.

- At this point, you can strain through a fine mesh sieve - which I had to do because otherwise this would not all fit into my ice cream maker - to get out the seeds. This takes a long time so be patient.

- Pop it back into the fridge covered in plastic wrap for an hour (or more, the more the better) to chill.

- Put in your ice cream maker and follow directions for frozen yogurt. I'm not going to recommend you pour this into ice cubes or anything - that has never worked for me. Use an ice cream maker for best results.