Fro-Yo

My husband is–or was–an ice cream fanatic.  When I met him, he would put away a full pint of Ben & Jerry’s in one short sitting, usually around midnight, after eating a full dinner.  Without ever gaining a pound.  How I fell in love with him, I will never know.  Luckily for me, he doesn’t do the full pint of ice cream trick much any more, especially in his new found “nutrition” phase.  Well, at least not as much.

Before his nutrition revelation, I actually bought a refurbished Cuisinart ice cream maker–the kind with the compressor, where you can make batch after batch of ice cream, and never have to pre-freeze anything?  I thought I could have fun making ice cream to feed his addiction, and maybe also fold that into my new (at the time) food biz.  It didn’t work out that way, for many reasons.  The main reason being that the ice cream maker is RIDICULOUSLY loud.  As in, I have to close it into a room in the house as far as possible from where I will be, and I can still hear it grinding away.  Sigh.  And on top of that, I never could come close to Ben & Jerry’s in my husband’s eyes.  You really can’t argue with awesomeness.

Nevertheless, I still occasionally make a frozen treat, and probably that is better for me than if my ice cream maker has been whisper quiet and my husband had never seen the light, as it were.  And since he has seen the light, I’m now working on my frozen yogurt repertoire, yummy!

Okay, so technically this isn’t totally a frozen yogurt.  It does have some cream in it.  It’s a lovely combination of tangy and creamy and sweet, and would be even better with a fruit sauce topping, or carmelized nuts, or anything that would play off of the tangy-yogurty-ness of it.

Vanilla Frozen Yogurt Ice Cream (adapted from The Ultimate Ice Cream Book by Bruce Weinstein)

• 32 ounce plain yogurt
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1/4-1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup half and half (or cream)
• 1 tsp vanilla

Line a fine mesh strainer with a layer of paper towels and place over a bowl.  Pour the yogurt into the strainer, place in the refridgerator and allow to drain for about 2 hours.  Discard the liquid and mix the strained yogurt with honey, sugar, half and half, and vanilla.  Freeze in your ice cream maker according to manufacturer’s directions.