Waste Not Want Not Wednesday- Milk!

May 20, 2009

450px-milk_glassMy sister and her 6 kiddos came to the farm to spend a few days this week – bringing with them lots of energy and lots of food! I soon realized that our refrigerator couldn’t handle all the wonderful things she had brought.

So, I called one of the boys to bring up our Coleman PowerChill cooler. I love the convenience of an extra refrigerator on occasions such as this. He plugged it in, we filled it up and forgot about it…

…until noon the next day when we started to make lunch for the troops.I opened the cooler to grab the cantaloupes and was shocked to discover they were hot. Not warm, as if it hadn’t been running, but hot.

In the chaos of unpacking, dealing with the piles of duffel bags, sleeping bags, suitcases, and food, we had plugged our warm/cool electric cooler on in the warm function.

Our 2 gallons of milk and 2 cantaloupes had been “cooking’ all night long.

Oops.

Now what do we do with 2 gallons of warm milk and 2 cantaloupes? Would it be okay to just cool the milk back down and drink it? Kind of double pasteurized?  We weren’t sure.

It was time to call Mom (of course!) After she stopped laughing, she started brainstorming ideas.

We decide to cut up the cantaloupe, put in the fridge to cool down and eat it immediately. It tasted fine.

Mom suggested making chocolate milk with one of the gallons. It was brilliant! I put it in a pot on the stove, added 2 cups of sugar, 2 cups of cocoa powder and a pinch of salt. After mixing it well with the immersion blender, I poured it back in the jug and put it in the fridge.

It chilled all night and the kids guzzled it down the next day!

One gallon down, one to go.

It was time to divide and conquer. We used some to make broccoli cheese soup for our lunch, some for the macaroni and cheese for the kids lunch, and the rest went into homemade vanilla pudding that we put in the freezer and made into pudding pops for the next day.

We did it! Nothing was wasted. Everything was used.

It is interesting to note that not one of us, my sister, my mom or myself, ever even thought of dumping the milk. We were determined to find a use for it because we had been taught from a young age that we should “Waste not, want not!”

By Country Gal | Posted in Cooking and Food, Thrifty Ideas | Tagged , , , | Comment (1)

Freezing Milk

June 10, 2008

Milk. It’s a staple in almost every household, a basic ingredient in almost every refrigerator.

But have you seen the prices? They keep going up! I cringe when my children pour extra milk on their cereal and don’t drink it. (Don’t worry, I’m working on that habit!)

We use a lot of milk, not just to drink, but in cooking. Since we’ve moved to the country, it’s hard to keep milk on hand. You don’t just run to the store to pick up a gallon. A trip to any store is a well-planned event.

In the past I would keep dry milk on hand to mix up and use in baking, but the price of dry milk keeps going up as well. It’s no longer the bargain it used to be.

I also watch the price of evaporated milk and stock up when it’s on sale. It tastes fine in cooking or baking. It even adds a creamier texture to mashed potatoes without all the extra fat from cream. But even the sale price has been higher lately.

My friend Kristin recently told me of another option, freezing milk. I was skeptical at first, but have found that it really does work.

She just puts the entire 2 gallon jug in the freezer. It freezes and stays good until you need it. It does take a few days to thaw completely, but works wonderfully well in any cooking you need to do.

Skim and 1% work the best. My children even used it on their cereal and drank it at meal times. They never knew the difference. If you freeze whole milk or 2% , it is okay to cook with, but it doesn’t taste quite the same.

Now I watch the milk whenever I’m in town and always pick up the jugs that are reduced for quick sale. They get put in the freezer as soon as I get home and are ready to take out and thaw whenever I need them!

So this Thrifty Lady learned a very good lesson, two actually. The first is always be willing to examine a new thrifty idea and the second is, periodically reexamine your own thrifty ideas. Prices change, your needs change, and what has always worked before may not always work in the future.

By Country Gal | Posted in Cooking and Food, Thrifty Ideas | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)