Like the rest of America, you can usually find Greek yogurt in my fridge. It has secured a place in the hearts of health conscious folks across this great land of ours. Thicker than traditional yogurt (due to the draining off of the whey), it pairs wonderfully with fresh fruit and honey…and a dusting of flax seed meal and walnuts makes it dessert…or breakfast. Even Starbucks has a Greek yogurt cup in their cold case so you know it’s a universal food. But after awhile, day in and day out, it’s kinda hard to get excited about my bowlful of yogurt…Greek or otherwise.
I noticed that kefir kept popping up on those lists of superfoods. Oprah touts its advantages so you KNOW it’s got to be the real deal. My guess was that it was like a liquid yogurt. I bought a carton at Trader Joe’s…plain, low fat. And my hunch was correct. It is liquid yogurt with different nutritional properties than yogurt but apparently a powerhouse of goodness. But I was stymied as to what to do with it. It’s not like I’m going to chug it from the carton (though my mom does…but of course she politely uses a glass). I thought about making smoothies but with fresh fruit for smoothies not in abundance this time of year, I wasn’t excited about that idea. So there the carton sat on the top shelf of the fridge. I wasn’t about to be outdone by a dairy product, but I couldn’t think of how to use it.
Then inspiration tweaked my ear: what would it be like to make ice cream from the kefir? I pulled out my Cuisinart ice cream maker cook book. (Tangent here….if you don’t have a Cuisinart ice cream maker I HIGHLY recommend you get one. The bowl goes in the freezer. The ice cream mixture is assembled, and then chills in the fridge for a few hours. Only takes about 15 minutes to churn and voila! The most delicious ice cream!!) There were recipes for frozen yogurt in the book but they included straining the yogurt which I wasn't sure would work with the kefir. “What about”, inspiration said to me, “you just follow the regular recipe but substitute kefir for the whole milk and heavy cream?” That’s just what I did. Organic strawberries are in at The Farm so strawberry frozen kefir seemed logical.
The result? Soft-serve so creamy you’d be hard pressed to find a difference between the kefir and the cream. Once it hardens in the freezer it has a more tangy flavor and isn’t as creamy. But soooooo good! I’m off to Trader Joe’s to get some more kefir. And just wait until peaches are in season…blueberries…ooohh! mangoes! What would chocolate be like? Too bad Oprah is done with her show. They could have done a whole segment on the wonders of kefir. (Or maybe they did! HA!) Guess I’ll have to find my 15 minutes of fame somewhere else.
(Post script: apparently there are a lot of uses for kefir. I did a google search and some good ideas came up…salad dressings, potato salad, cheese, veggie dip and a very traditional borscht!)
Fresh Strawberry Kefir Ice Cream
1 ½ cups fresh strawberries, hulled
2 ¼ cup plain unsweetened kefir
2/3 cup granulated sugar
Pinch salt
1 ½ tsp vanilla extract
Put the strawberries into the bowl of a food processor fitted with chopping blade. Pulse strawberries until finely chopped. Reserve in a bowl. (I use an immersion blending stick which makes it way easy to puree.) In a medium bowl combine the kefir, sugar and salt and whisk until the sugar is dissolved. Stir in the vanilla and the reserved strawberries with all their juices. Cover and refrigerate 1 to 2 hours or overnight. Use your favorite automatic ice cream maker to churn…soft serve takes about 15 to 20 minutes. If you want a firmer consistency, transfer to an airtight container and place in freezer for about 2 hours.
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