Have you noticed that the country has become frozen yogurt obsessed? There are no less than six frozen yogurt shops within a 4 mile radius of my house, and that doesn’t even take into account the local ice cream shops that also sell it. It would appear that fro-yo has become hot, hot, hot!
Last year the Easter Bunny brought my kids a set of personal sized ice cream makers. They were thrilled and couldn’t wait to get started, but the recipes that came along with the units all called for heavy cream and whole milk. In other words real ice cream ingredients! I’m all for less than healthy treats now and again (which of course includes full fat ice cream), but I certainly couldn’t picture us whipping up a weekly batch of the stuff. I didn’t want their interest in cooking to be diminished just because the folks a Hamilton Beach couldn’t come up with a healthier frozen dessert recipe, so… I did a little research and a bit of recipe tweaking and came up with a solution. A fresh strawberry frozen yogurt recipe that tasted great and I could feel good about encouraging my kids to make and eat. This recipe is loaded with fresh strawberries (which just happen to be hitting the supermarkets again) and high protein greek yogurt and light sour cream in place of the full fat dairy. We added a few chocolate chips just to up the ante and the results were delicious!
But then I got crazy. Then I decided that if the frozen yogurt was healthy perhaps I should make a topping for it that was just a smidge unhealthy. Something like, oh I don’t know— homemade chocolate sauce! Like I said crazy, but oh so good…
Fresh Strawberry Frozen Yogurt
This recipe doesn’t make a tremendous amount, perhaps a quart or so, which is just enough for your kids to think you’re a total rock star in the kitchen. Enjoy the accolades!
2 1/2 cups diced fresh strawberries
2/3-3/4 cup sugar
1 tbsp. lemon juice
1 cup plain nonfat greek yogurt
1/2 cup light sour cream
2/3 cup chocolate chips (optional)
- Hull and chop the berries. Toss them with the sugar and lemon juice in a large bowl, cover and let steep about an hour.
- Remove 3/4 cup of the macerated berries and set aside. Combine the remainder of the berries, sour cream and the greek yogurt in a blender and blend until smooth. Gently stir in the reserved strawberries and chill the mixture for at least one hour.
- Pour the chilled mixture into your ice cream maker and process according to the manufacturer’s directions. (Half way through the processing we added our chocolate chips.)
- Enjoy your homemade frozen yogurt with a healthy drizzle of chocolate sauce and revel in how multifaceted you’ve become in the kitchen.
*adapted from kitchen trial and error
Homemade Chocolate Sauce
This sauce is fantastic drizzled on ice cream, makes terrific hot chocolate or chocolate milk and is the perfect chocolate fix right off the spoon.
1/2 cup dark cocoa powder
1 cup water
1 1/4 cups sugar
1 pinch salt
1 tsp. real vanilla extract
- In a medium high sided saucepan mix together the cocoa powder and water. Place over a medium flame, add the sugar and stir to dissolve.
- Bring mixture to a boil and allow to cook and thicken for 5 minutes, stirring frequently. (Be prepared for it to bubble up while cooking.)
- Remove the pot from the heat, and stir in the salt and vanilla. Allow to cool slightly before pouring into glass jars. Allow to fully cool on the counter then store jars in the fridge.
*adapted from small notebook
beets and blue cheese 
WOW— I can’t wait to give this creation a taste! Nice going Jan!
Much Love–Mom & Dad