Fresh Strawberry Fro-Yo & Healthy Popsicles!

 
Last weekend, Peter and I celebrated our 1 year anniversary in the charming little town of San Luis Obispo. That is where we both went to college, and also where we met :)


One of my very first posts on this blog was on roasted brussel sprouts that I got from the San Luis Obispo farmer's market during a visit to S.L.O. last winter. They have a KILLER farmer's market! The entire downtown is transformed into a giant farmer's market every Thursday night and EVERYONE in town is there, young and old. They have everything... jewelry, produce, restaurants, live music, unicyclers juggling fire... literally everything! It really brings the community together :)


In college, I would go to farmer's market every Thursday night and buy a flat of strawberries for a huge pancake brunch that our house would host every Sunday. When Peter and I went up to SLO for our anniversary last week, we got there just in time for the farmers market. I went to my old trusty strawberry distributor at farmers and he remembered me! Anyway, moral of the story... buy up all the strawberries you can find right now before the season is over, and make frozen yogurt and popsicles so that you can continue to enjoy them long after this season is gone :)


Every time Peter and I go out for frozen yogurt, he gets strawberry fro-yo... every time- even if it's just a little bit. Well, with all the strawberries during the summer, I figured that strawberry fro-yo could be a perfect treat I could make for him to enjoy! Now, at the end of summer, it is a great way to preserve the last of these sweet berries so you can continue to enjoy them even as we exit their harvest season. Make extra strawberry-yogurt blend or use leftover fro-yo to make GREAT, healthy, creamy-strawberry popsicles!

Ice cream is pretty easy to make, it just takes quite a bit of time.... but this frozen yogurt is even easier and takes basically no time at all! It really couldn't be any more effortless, quick, or delicious. AND it only requires a couple ingredients:  fresh strawberries, and Greek yogurt :) A little bit of sugar can be used if the strawberries are too tart, but it is definitely not required.

Recipe: 

• 1 lb Fresh Strawberries
• 1 1/2 cups Plain, Nonfat Greek Yogurt (you could also use vanilla or another flavored Greek yogurt, but that greatly increases the sugar content)
• **Optional: 1/8 to 1/4 cup granulated Sugar, if strawberries are too tart**

Wash all your strawberries and cut them up into quarters. Then stir them well. Cover with plastic wrap and let it sit and release its juices for 2 hours or over night (I chose to let mine 'juice' over night :) You want all that sweet juice to mix into the yogurt.

**Depending on how ripe and sweet your strawberries are, you might not need any sugar at all- it can be 'no sugar added'! :) However, if your strawberries are tart or getting to the tail end of the season, you  might chose to use a little bit of sugar (no more than 1/4 cup) to toss with the cut strawberries. This will sweeten them, AND help pull out the juices; the sugar granules cause the strawberry cells to burst (by osmosis) which releases the juices out of the berries. Again, you want all that sweet juice to mix into the yogurt. 

After your strawberries have 'juiced' over night, transfer them to a blender, a food processor, or use a hand blender (like I did) to puree the berries... but not too much; it's nice to get a few fresh strawberry pieces in some of your spoonfuls.

Stir the Greek Yogurt into the strawberry puree until it is well combined.

And churn it in the ice cream machine for about 20-30 minutes. Done. Couldn't be any easier.

Enjoy it immediately in 'soft serve' form,

Enjoy leftovers by pouring it into popsicle molds and freezing it for later! These make a delicious healthy snack. You can also freeze leftovers in an ice cube tray to use for smoothies!

You can also store leftovers in a tupperware tub to eat later, but it will not retain that 'soft-serve' consistency.

If you do eat some later (like we did), just set it out for about 30 or 40 minutes to let it soften to a good consistency again. 

** Helpful Hint: If you freeze some in tupperware, press some plastic wrap onto the top of you yogurt and then snapped the lid on to prevent any freezer burn. When we wanted to eat it, we simply pulled it out of the freezer and removed the plastic wrap, walked down to the beach to catch a little sun, and then we came back and enjoyed our fresh strawberry frozen yogurt when it got to the right consistency!

Coffee Ice Cream with Chocolate-covered Espresso Beans

This coffee ice cream would make a great mud pie with an oreo cookie crust, a fudge topping, and some chocolate covered espresso beans on top... I SHOULD HAVE DONE THAT! Next time :)

I have made coffee ice cream several times; usually I just use jarred instant coffee granules, but this time I used those 'Starbucks Via' instant coffee packages. It seems like everyone has those now, so I thought I'd  create the recipe using ingredients that you'll likely have already. I also gave it a few extra touches that came out GREAT, and I will do every time now! Those extra special additions were: fresh coffee grounds, and chocolate covered espresso beans.  Mmmmm....

I use my same vanilla ice cream recipe as the base for this coffee ice cream: 

 Recipe: 

• 3 cups Half & Half
• 1 cup Heavy Cream
• 1 1/8 cups Sugar
• 8 egg Yolks
• 5 packets 'Via' Instant Coffee
• 1 Tablespoon Fresh Coffee Grounds
• 1 cup Chocolate-covered Espresso Beans

First, I combine the half & half and the cream in a large pot and bring that to a simmer over medium heat. Let it thicken for about 15 minutes.

While the half & half and cream are simmering, whisk together the egg yolks and the sugar....

...until it becomes a smooth, pastel-yellow mixture.

Slowly temper the egg mixture by adding 1 cup of the hot cream at a time- stirring together well in between each added cup. 

Otherwise, the eggs will cook/scramble if you add in all the hot cream at once.

Once the egg mixture is all tempered and combined, add it all back into the pot on the stove and bring it to a simmer again over medium-low heat. Stir constantly.

As it simmers, it will thicken. Eventually, you should be able to leave a finger streak in the thick custard that will coat the spoon...

after about 10 minutes:

After about 20 minutes:

Then add in both the instant coffee and the fresh coffee grounds. (I made coffee in a french press, then poured myself a cup of coffee and the scooped a tablespoon of the grounds out of the french press)

The instant coffee gives that great, rich, coffee flavor, 

and the grounds give a little flavor and a fun coffee-speckled look!

After about 30 minutes. Done.:

Pour it into a large bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and let cool overnight.

When it is all cooled, go ahead and churn it in your pre-frozen ice cream machine:

As the ice cream churns, it will become thicker and thicker, and it will grow in volume. But before it gets too thick, add in your roughly-chopped chocolate-covered espresso beans: 

After just about 30 minutes or so, the ice cream will already be a 'slightly-more-firm than soft-serve' consistency. You can enjoy it now...

...or you can pack it into a freezable container and let it firm up even more in the freezer until it becomes like a classic 'haagen dazs' ice cream.

The chocolate-covered espresso beans were SO GOOD in this ice cream!

Some other fun additions, if you can't find chocolate-covered espresso beans, would be:

toffee bits, chocolate chips, fudge ripple & almonds, oreo cookie pieces, ...sky's the limit!

Rich, Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream

After baking angel food cake, I had a bowl full of yolks that were begging to be made into some rich and creamy ice cream. When I buy ice cream at the store I usually opt for the 'double churned' and 'half-the-fat' type of versions... but for a special treat (and for the fun of making it) I am going to make the fully-leaded, real deal stuff. I make this ice cream just a couple times a year because 1) it's not a low fat treat, and 2) I don't typically reserve this many yolks at a time.


My sister-in-law, Ashley, was the first to start making ice cream in our family. Hers was so good, that both my sister and I went out and bought ice cream churners so that we could start making home made ice cream too! I was in college at the time and I had a ton of fun playing around with different flavors: cookies 'n cream, mint chip, espresso, toasted coconut, peanut butter cup, rocky road... and they all use this same vanilla base. This original base recipe came from Alton Brown, but I gotta give Ashley the credit for doing the grunt work in finding this killer recipe.


Ice Cream recipe (makes about 1 1/2 quarts (i.e. 6 cups)):
3 cups Half & Half
1 cup Heavy Cream
1 1/8 cups Sugar
8 egg Yolks
2 tsp Vanilla

First, combine the half & half and the heavy cream in a large pot over medium heat. Let this simmer and thicken for about 15 minutes.

While the creamy-mixture is simmering on the stove, whip together the egg yolks and the sugar until it is a pastel yellow color, and smooth & 'ribbony' when you drizzles from the lifted whisk.

Slowly temper the egg mixture by adding 1 cup of the hot cream at a time stirring together well in between each added cup. Otherwise the eggs will cook up/scramble if you add in all the hot cream at once.

The tempered egg-cream base will look like this:

Then pour it all back into the same pot:

And bring it up to a simmer over medium-low heat, stirring constantly. Do this for about 30 minutes or so until this base thickens; eventually you should be able to leave a finger streak on the spoon and it will stay there :)

Finger streak after about 10 minutes (not quite prominent enough yet):

Finger streak after about 20 minutes (this is okay, and you could stop here, but I decided to keep mine going):

Finger streak after about 30 minutes or so (finger streak is very nice and prominent and the ice cream base is nice and thick, almost custard-like:

**See how mine looks like it is starting to clump up a bit, this is because I was impatient and I turned up the heat on mine. Don't do this. It's actually fine and it will still churn into smooth ice cream, but you will get a smoother custard if you let it simmer low and slow.

Pour your finished ice cream base into a bowl and stir in the vanilla. Cover this bowl with plastic wrap and store in the fridge overnight so that it can completely cool before it is churned.

I keep my freezer bowls stored in double bags so that no freezer burn or frost gets in the bowl and into my ice cream.

Assemble your ice cream machine with the frozen freezer bowl:

Turn on your machine and carefully pour your ice cream into the opening in the top of the machine.

Watch your ice cream churn and transform from a fluid base...

...to a thicker cream...

...to a 'soft serve' consistency (and it starts to expand above the level of the freezer bowl since churning it adds volume to the ice cream :)

Turn off the machine, and remove the churning paddle (be sure to get all that ice cream off of it :)

Scoop out all the ice cream with either a wooden or rubber utensil (metal utensils will scratch and ruin your freezer bowl). You can enjoy your ice cream now as soft serve...

Or freeze it until it becomes the consistency of the real deal stuff :)

We enjoyed ours over some warm brownies...mmmmm!!!!