Frozen Yogurt Recipe

You might ask why I would write an entry about a recipe. The idea here is to give you an idea of how I feel about food in general. I am in no way a foodie. I am not an adventurous eater, and I really don't like trying new things. I enjoy a meal with close friends and family, but I dread eating in front of people I don't know that well. People who eat with me know I always wear a red shirt when we go for Mexican because I am guaranteed to wear several splotches of salsa before the end of the meal. Even more if we are having margaritas with dinner. For me there are things that I like, but very seldom do have cravings for anything in particular. When I am at work, I will eat exactly the same thing everyday for months.

I gain weight very easily, so I am very conscious of my diet. Carbs are enemy number on in my book. I avoid processed foods almost entirely. Most of my meals are made from fresh ingredients, and I eat a lot of fruits and vegetables with very little meat. Unless it is a holiday or a special event, you will never find bread, potatoes, white flour, white rice, or candy in my house. I hardly ever have desert at home, and I try to avoid snack foods like chips.

One of the other things I do a lot of is make my own food. This goes beyond using fresh ingredients. For example I brew my own beer using grains, I roast my own coffee, I have canned tomatoes, and made pasta sauce using roma tomatoes from my garden. I grind my own hamburger and my own breakfast sausage. I have made my own cheese, and I always make my own yogurt. 

So here we are at frozen yogurt. I have been making my own Greek yogurt for years. When I bought an instant pot a few years back, I started making much larger batches. I start out with a gallon of milk and use the yogurt settings on the instant pot to make the yogurt. I usually let it go for about 15-20 hours. Then I pull the yogurt out and strain it through a stainless steel Greek yogurt strainer. Then I either leave it plain or mix in reduced strawberries. For the strawberries, I usually reduce a large container of strawberries down on the stove, and I don't add any sweetener to it. Once reduced, I separate them into two cup containers and freeze. If I start with 2 gallons of milk to make my yogurt, after straining, I will usually have almost 8 cups of yogurt. Adding in two cups of strawberries makes a nice strawberry yogurt. 

Unless I have my son and girlfriend helping me, I really cant eat that much yogurt, so I got to thinking about making frozen yogurt. I bought an ice cream maker and started experimenting. I wanted to make a no sugar added frozen yogurt that would be good for my brother who is diabetic, and good for me because I like to stay away from sugar. I have tried a number of different low calorie sweeteners, but lately I have really liked using a blend of monk fruit and  erythritol sweetener. 

Here is the recipe I came up with that I really like.

• 3 cups strawberry yogurt from the method above
• 1 cup milk
• 1.5 cup monk fruit /  Erythritol blend
• 6 tablespoons vodka

The vodka keeps the yogurt from freezing too quickly and keeps it from getting too hard in the freezer. I start out by heating the milk, sweetener, and vodka in a small sauce pan until the sweetener is dissolved and the milk is just starting to froth. Don't let it boil or scald. I let the milk mixture cool then mix together with the three cups of yogurt in a mixing bowl. Once thoroughly mixed, I add it to my ice cream maker and set it for an hour. I have found that I usually have to add about 15 minutes to the time unless everything was chilled in advance. 

Once the yogurt is almost solid in the ice cream maker, I remove it and put it in an ice cream keeper that I put in the freezer. Letting it chill for about 2 hours will give you really nice scoopable frozen yogurt. After a day in the freezer it gets pretty hard, but setting it out on the counter for 15 minutes usually does the trick to get a nice scoop.  

For a vanilla version I just use three cups of plain yogurt instead of the strawberry and add two tablespoons of vanilla extract. 

I really do enjoy the entire process of making the yogurt and the frozen yogurt, and I love having full control over what I am eating.