Meals From the Pantry: Strawberry Lemon Frozen Yogurt with Chamomile

I am getting to the point where the garden is coming to life, and I am harvesting quite a few wild plants so the recipes here are going to start to focus on more seasonal ingredients, but I wanted to post one more recipe to my Meals from the Pantry series before fully switching gears.  While Frozen yogurt might not strike you as a "use up what you already have" type of recipe, the key ingredient here is jam or preserves, and I have quite a bit of that from the past canning season to use up!

I love making jam.

There's just something about commingling the different flavours that I really enjoy.  I like to add unexpected herbs, or combine flavours you might not have thought of.  Marisa McLellan's Food In Jars was my gateway to creative preserving, while still keeping all the guidelines for safe food preservation in the forefront.  If you are going to do something like this, it is very important hat you make sure you follow the protocols to keep whoever is eating your preserves safe from botulism and other issues.  One problem with my love of making jam is that I have now made so much more than I or my family can ever eat!  I have given some away, but I am still left with quite a backlog, so I've been trying to think of different ways to use it all up.  One day it struck me: frozen yogurt!

I used an ice cream maker, because I have one that I love, but there are methods out there for freezing ice cream without one.  I think you can put your mixture in a container and remember to stir it up every hour or so until you like the consistency.  I'll link to the ice cream maker I use if you're in the market for one.

While full fat yogurt, and heavy cream might require you to make an extra purchase, they are staples in my fridge.  When making frozen yogurt or ice cream, it is important to get enough fat into the mixture, so because yogurt usually doesn't contain that much fat, it is important to add a bit more so that when your mixture freezes you don't get an unpleasant mouthfeel.  The same is true with sugar.  This recipe doesn't have any extra sugar, because we are using very sugary jam.  A lot of people think of frozen yogurt as something healthy, but it really isn't.  That doesn't mean you shouldn't indulge, but I'm not going to pretend like it's any healthier than a bowl of ice cream.  Indulge in moderation (or not - I have zero moderation when it comes to ice cream).  As always, if you try one of these recipes let me know!  I'd love to see your posts on social media tagged #aforagerspantry, or drop a link in the comments!

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Strawberry Lemon Frozen Yogurt with Chamomile

Ingredients

• One 500ml container of lemon yogurt with as high a fat percentage as you can find.
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 2 cups strawberry chamomile jam or preserves

Takes 30 minutes, serves 4.

Instructions

1. Whisk all the ingredients together in a bowl trying to incorporate as little air as you can.
2. Freeze mixture according to your ice cream maker's instructions, or using whatever method you prefer.
3. Scoop out of the bowl of your ice cream maker, and freeze in a container for a couple hours if you want it to be harder than soft-serve consistency. I like using a bread pan for this purpose because of the shape, but I'm looking for something that has a lid without being plastic.

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When to Harvest Haskap Berries (hint: not now!)

I purchased these little haskap bushes last year at the Farmers' Market after reading information that suggested they would fit both my climate and my renter's garden (read: easily dismantled raised beds and containers) and I thought I would give them a try.  They are a type of edible honeysuckle also known as 'honeyberries' and are good to go all the way down to zone 3!  The jury is out as to whether they are native to Canada or not.  Some sources suggest yes, others that they have naturalized here from other locations.  For me all of those factors were enough to pique my interest so I picked up the two plants necessary to ensure good cross pollination.

After almost killing them last summer by underwatering they survived the winter and bounced back admirably.  They sent up new shoots, blossomed, fruited, and today they surprised me with a few dark blue berries.  I thought it seemed early, but most berries are ripe when they are the correct colour, so I picked them.  After that however I learned that the case with haskaps is a bit different and that you have to check the taste to determine ripeness.

Nice dark blue berries - must be ready, right?  Oh boy were they sour!  Oh well - four berries is hardly enough to seem like a waste although they did not make very many berries this year. There are a couple more that I will try later on in the summer!