Summer Cooking: Strawberry Frozen Yogurt

I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis back in the Spring of 2001, as a young, married, newly employed, college graduate. I think I probably suffered from the condition since high school, and when I was finally diagnosed it was a relief but also very disheartening, as I realized it was something I would wrestle with the rest of my life.

Almost immediately I started following a really strict diet called the Specific Carbohydrate Diet. Basically I ate fruit, vegetables, cheese, nuts, meat, lentils and homemade yogurt for months. And I healed. Completely. I slowly introduced other foods back into my diet and my colitis stayed in remission for over six years. Anytime I started to experience symptoms, I would go back on my diet to get things under control.

Pregnancy and breastfeeding kind of messed with that remission status (not to mention the fact my diet for the most part did not resemble the one described above), and I've been struggling with my health off and on the past 18 months.

So I decided to go back on my diet as much as possible to help my body heal and get things back on track. Today I was really craving something sweet, when all of the sudden it hit me: I could make a really good frozen yogurt with diet-approved ingredients. I threw together this Strawberry Frozen Yogurt in just a few minutes:

Strawberry Frozen Yogurt

3 cups greek-style yogurt (I used a combo of plain 2% Fage and TJ's nonfat vanilla)

2 cups fresh or frozen strawberries (I used a combo)

honey

squeeze of lemon juice

*splash of kirsch or vodka (optional; this keeps it soft)

Process/pulse strawberries in a blender until pureed. With blender running, add honey to taste. Add lemon juice and liquor.

Place in fridge to cool for one hour (I just left mine in the blender jar and I only waited about 48 minutes).

Process in your ice cream maker for 25 minutes

*So I basically just threw this recipe together and into the fridge, minus the alcohol, when I decided I should probably check a real fro yo recipe to make sure I wasn't going to mess things up. What should I find, but a David Lebovitz recipe, almost exactly like mine! Wow, I didn't know I was that good. Ha ha. (I got the suggestion for kirsch from him, and I don't know what difference it would make, but my batch turned out awesome! I also used 3 cups of yogurt, whereas he used 1.)

It was so good, I served it to my kids for dinner with toast. Seriously. I'm that Mama today.