Recipe: Chocolate Caramel Frozen Greek Yogurt

Chocolate, sweet, and frozen - some of the things that you think you may have to give up in a post-op life, but not so! And, it doesn't have to be the fake food nastiness that's in a lot of the things in your grocer's freezer section.

Now, I will admit that I'm a bit of a purist when it comes to these things - to make a good frozen yogurt you do need some fat. It may be possible to make this work with non-fat or very low fat products, but the texture and mouth feel just won't be the same and it will harden into an icier freeze - not optimal. You may choose to make some substitutions, but the savings in calories and fat, in my opinion, don't make the changes in the final product worth it.

•  12 oz plain greek yogurt (I use Greek Gods brand, found at Harris Teeter)
• 1/3 cup good quality unsweetened cocoa
• 1/8 cup Truvia (stevia sweetener)
• 1/4 cup Torani sugar-free caramel syrup
• 3/4 cup whole milk 

Whisk ingredients together in medium sized bowl until thoroughly combined. Consistency will be thicker than milk, but not as thick as a milkshake. Add milk a tablespoon at a time if you feel it needs thinning.

 Freeze in home ice cream maker according to manufacturer's directions - mine takes about 25 minutes to get to a good soft-serve stage. Freezing for 4-6 hours will give a firmer but still scoopable consistency. I find that a thaw of ~45 minutes or more is necessary to get back to a soft consistency after a hard freeze, longer than you'd expect a traditional ice cream to need to rest.

I've rated this recipe 12+ months only because the fat content is bumping out against our goals for the losing stage. As always, let your own tummy be your guide as long as it fits within your daily nutritional goals.

This recipe makes just a bit under 1 quart - or approximately 4 ~3/4 cup servings.

Nutritional information (1/4 recipe): 173 calories, 14.2g fat, 17g carbohydrates, 6.5g sugars, 7.5g protein