If you’re cruising in a hot climate, you probably crave ice cream. We did.
Whenever we’d hit town, we’d do all our errands, take everything back to the boat, and put it away. Hot and tired, we’d then make one more trip ashore . . . to the local ice cream shop. You can see the bliss on Dave’s face at the shop in Santa Rosalia (they also endeared themselves to us by giving us a tiny dish with just a spoonful of vanilla in it for Paz!).
We so wanted ice cream aboard Que Tal. But our freezer didn’t really get cold enough for it, and it was too small — and too filled with meat — to hold more than a couple of servings.
Then one day in Loreto, I saw a sign that the ice cream store now had frozen yogurt . . . and that got me thinking. I knew how to make wonderful thick yogurt and did so on a regular basis. I could freeze a tiny little container at a time and make more as we ate it. I didn’t know if my freezer got cold enough, but I figured I could try. As soon as we got back to the boat, I put some yogurt in the freezer. Hopefully, we’d have a treat after our hike the next day.
Oh, my! This was my single most successful experiment in cooking on the boat! It’s also one of Dave’s biggest regrets in suddenly developing a serious allergy to milk. (As a side note, most people who are lactose intolerant and thus can’t eat ice cream can eat frozen yogurt as the yogurt culturing process removes the lactose.)
Frozen Yogurt Recipe
Frozen Yogurt
Ingredients
- 1 cup yogurt Greek or homemade
- 2 tsp sugar
- Add-in flavorings See list in notes
Instructions
- Mix the yogurt, sugar and any add-ins (see below for ideas) in a small container.
- Cover and place the container in the freezer for about 6 hours, until frozen to about the consistency of ice cream.
Notes
- Fresh or canned fruit, cut into cubes no larger than ½”
- Soft dried fruits like raisins, dates, apricots, prunes, figs or cranberries, cut into bite-sized pieces
- Nuts
- A swirl of honey, peanut butter or Nutella
- Almost any sort of chocolate candy, cut into bite-sized bits M&M’s or Reese’s pieces
- Oreos or other cookies, broken into bits
- Granola or bran cereal (good with honey instead of sugar)
- Vanilla, rum, Kahlua, Amaretto or orange liquor
- Nestle’s Quik or other flavorings for milk (if they contain a lot of sugar, decrease or eliminate the sugar)
- A swirl of Hershey’s syrup — wonderful with a few peanuts thrown in
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Victor says
I am looking forward, with GREAT antici……..pation … to getting a copy of your cook book …
Vic
Anonymous says
I’m gonna try it. Pretty sure I already have the perfect plastic containers for our freezer!! Thanks Carolyn
Jean COLEMAN says
I have made yogurt 8 or 9 times but it is never as thick as I would like. I do not stir the whey back into the yogurt when it is finished. Any suggestions? Where can I buy the best powdered milk?J
Carolyn Shearlock says
Use a little more milk powder and perhaps a little more starter. Buy Nido powdered milk in the Mexican aisle of most groceries, at Mexican groceries or from Amazon: https://amzn.to/2q1flE7
New Zealand powdered milks are also good. Be sure to use “full fat” (whole) powdered milk, not a skim milk.