quick and easy frozen yogurt

if you can open a container of yogurt you can make this recipe.
also if you have an ice cream maker, or can borrow one.

i recently acquired an ice cream maker at a thrift store - great $8 investment - and once i started reading homemade ice cream recipes i realized i couldn't be eating that on a daily or even weekly basis without expecting to double my weight, so i went in search of some frozen yogurt recipes. this is my favorite, because it's the easiest.

now, you know i like making things myself, including homemade yogurt, but sometimes you just need a dessert fix and you don't want a long process. this is your go-to recipe for that. all you do is open a container of greek-style yogurt (the FAGE brand they sell at costco works well for this, and is inexpensive), add sugar and whatever other flavors or chunks you want, and turn on the machine.

thanks to 101 cookbooks for the recipe:
3 cups greek style yogurt (or strained yogurt - see below)
2/3 cup sugar (i like my yogurt tangy so i put in a little less)
1 teaspoon vanilla (optional)

i made the plain version of  this yogurt and loved it. i also made a lilikoi (passion fruit) version, which was quite tasty and tangy. the only thing to keep in mind here is that you want to make only the amount you're going to eat at one sitting because it doesn't store well in the freezer - mine got rock solid.

now, if you don't have greek-style yogurt or want to make your own (greek style to me means it's just thicker than regular yogurt), you can strain regular yogurt. seeing how it halves in size makes me think this isn't a money saving option, but here's how:

for one cup strained yogurt, nest a mesh strainer over a bowl, line it with a few layers of cheesecloth, pour 2 cups plain whole milk yogurt into the cheesecloth. fold the cheesecloth over your yogurt and let sit in the refrigerator for at least 6 hours.