Many people cringe when they think about the amount of milk our family must go through each week with our family of 3 teenage sons (plus a pre-teen). A gallon a day? Two? How in the world do I keep enough milk in the house for all my boys? I’ll tell you.
We go through exactly one gallon each week.
Disappointed? Sorry. That’s really all we go through.
I took this picture back when we used to get two gallons of milk each week. Pretty isn’t it?
What’s up with our tiny milk consumption in a household of enormous appetites? Well I really don’t want to get into a milk debate here because I have not landed anywhere concrete on the “we should be drinking plenty of milk no actually we shouldn’t” scale. I have researched and I have asked professionals and I am conflicted. Some say drink lots and some say don’t drink it at all. We land somewhere in the middle and we do our best to drink milk from good sources.
If you ever want to waste milk, simply put too much in your high power blender, then turn it on.
It will explode all over you and all over your kitchen and you will be cleaning it up for days.
This is not a recommended way to use up excess milk.
Here are the two biggest (but not very exciting) reasons we don’t drink much milk at our house:
1. Our natural doctor advised that our boys/men don’t really need much milk.
2. Our boys don’t love drinking milk.
That’s it.
While some kids love drinking milk and chug down several glasses full each day, our boys never have really cared that much about it. I take that to mean that their bodies really don’t need it. If you’ve seen any of them lately, you know that lack of milk consumption has done nothing to keep them from growing long legs. Good grief, their pants.
We get raw, organic milk from a local farmer and we drink it moderately. Actually, we mostly just cook with it.
So that’s our milk situation. What’s yours? Go through lots? Hardly go through any at all? Raw, coconut, regular, unleaded? (ew)
What To Do With Milk You Need to Use Up
Let’s just say you got a good deal on milk and bought several gallons. Or you got your regular allotted milk from your local farmer and you can’t drink it up fast enough. We typically finish off our milk just fine in one week (again, I mostly just cook with it). But every once in a while if we are out of town or the boys are at camp – we end up with extra milk we need to use up quickly.
Here are some ideas of what to do (not that you couldn’t just have a cookies and milk party for the neighborhood):
Freeze It
Milk freezes just fine, although we’ve found that it works best to first skim the cream off our farm fresh milk.
Culture It
I always keep Homemade Buttermilk on hand for baking and so I can quickly make Ranch Salad Dressing. It’s also super easy to make Kefir or Yogurt. If you culture your milk, it will keep longer in the fridge.
Make Shakes
We’ll go through a half gallon of milk pretty easily if I make it chocolate. :)
Cook or Bake With It
These recipes use quite a bit of milk (especially for my family since I usually double or triple or quadruple a recipe).
- Whole Wheat Waffles
- Simple Whole Wheat Pancakes
- Sausage Gravy
- Creamy Mac and Cheese
- Cheeseburger Macaroni
- Baked Three Cheese Chicken Pasta
- Three Cheese Garlic Chicken Pasta
- Tuna Casserole
- Vanilla Pudding
- Butterscotch Pudding
- Tapioca Pudding
- Peanut Butter Pudding
- Chocolate Pudding
- Warm Vanilla Soother
- Warm Chocolate Soother
- Chocolate Mint Soother
- Warm Pumpkin Custard
- Smoothies
Those are my go-to options when we need to use up milk. How about you? What do you do or make when you need to use up milk?
But the school text books say drink lots of milk! lol I’m with you on the conflicted issue.
And while I would prefer raw milk, I currently just buy the store stuff. For our family of 4, I’ve been buying 2 gallons a week, but most of it gets made into kefir. Instead of giving my kids a glass of milk, I give them kefir. I figure I’m making that not-so-perfect milk into something healthier and good for our bellies! : ) I’ve read that just a spoonful of kefir has way more probiotics than any probiotic supplement. We drink kefir plain(usually with honey), cook with it, and make smoothies and popsicles with it.
So when you cook with it, do you mean that you stir it into baked goods, or are you using kefir instead of milk in say, gravy or sauces on the stovetop? What a great way to add extra nourishment (although I do realize that heating it takes away some of the goodness).
I guess I should have said I bake with it. I use kefir instead of buttermilk in things like biscuits or waffles. I assume it would curdle or separate like yogurt if you tried to cook it into sauces. And, yes, I think baking with kefir kills the wonderful probiotics, but it’s much cheaper than buttermilk for me.
But mostly we drink it. Oh, another place I use it is in your ranch dressing. I do sour cream and enough kefir to the right thickness I want. It’s a good yogurt substitute, it’s just thinner, so you have to adjust for that.
We drink a lot of milk here and so it rarely has to be used up. I do keep an eye on the raw milk because I find that it can go faster than the store bought milk. Depending on how rich your extra milk is you could make tapioca pudding, sherbet or frozen fruit blended with whole milk in a fruit-slushie dessert, scones, any number of cream soups, baked oatmeal (carrot cake baked oatmeal!), just plain oatmeal cooked in milk and frozen in individual servings, etc.
Oh my goodness, yes. Tapioca pudding.
My oldest daughter drinks milk with breakfast every morning, but the rest of us don’t drink much at all. I use any extra milk to make homemade chocolate pudding, which is a hit with everyone!
Mmmm, chocolate pudding. :)
I have a few milk heavy recipes that help, but the kids preferred ways of using up extra milk include pudding (chia or just regular), baked french toast, hot chocolate, extra pancakes for the freezer or making simple farmer’s cheese. Seriously, the cheese is just heated milk mixed with vinegar and then drained. So easy, so good when flavored with garlic and dill or cumin and chili pepper or just salted. Just made a few gallons worth for our homeschool co-op science and the kids just couldn’t get enough and the moms were blown away. Easy way to use up a bunch and eat up the results!
Would you be so kind as to email me with the specifics of this. How much vinegar, how hot is the milk, etc? This sounds too fun! (laura @ heavenlyhomemakers.com)
I want to hear about this too!
When we have extra milk, our favorite thing to do with it is make ice cream.
Now that the weather is warmer again, I can think about ice cream. Great idea!
Make chocolate or vanilla pudding and freeze as pudding pops!
I make yogurt! So easy! Heat to 180 degrees, cool to 110 degrees in an ice bath, add a little leftover yogurt from the fridge plus some tasty homemade vanilla, put in the dehydrator for 5 1/2 hours. Voila! I used to spend *ahem!* dollars on yogurt per week or my large family, so I started making it myself. What a difference!
I have never liked milk to drink. I do like puddings, ice-cream, boil custard, and use it on cereal. I could never turn a glass up and drink it plain. YUCK!!
We never have raw milk to use up–it disappears quickly! LOL We do like to use it in smoothies, as well as just drinking it and making chocolate milk.
Raw milk helps my digestion significantly. (Enzymes??) I have been really sick for a long time (long story), and pasteurized milk makes me even more ill. But I feel much better on raw milk than no milk at all.
We use the cream for cooking (sauces, like some in the sauce along with chicken broth). We also use the cream in smoothies or ice-cream (with some milk, too), and I want to try whipping it and/or making butter again.
Our two daughters also love it and drink a lot. Both of them do better on raw milk as well.
LOL….those are all great suggestions. I have daughters (3 of them) and I don’t know what that is…milk you need to use up. Our house goes thru several gallons a week. It seems like I hear ‘where did the milk go’ daily….. Not looking forward to summer vacations….. (my kids go to school since I have to work :( )
I guess we are the freaks that drink a ton of milk. We drink 1 & 1/2 gallons per day. I have 5 kids. I can honestly say that we have never, ever had to find a way to use up milk. I wish I had a cow in the back I could milk everyday. When I want to make something that requires a lot of milk, I weigh that desire with the need that I would then have to pick up more milk the next day, and if I’m too lazy to go shopping for the milk, I will forgo the idea. I didn’t know we were so strange until reading this.
Katy – definitely not strange. I grew up on a dairy farm, and we easily (EASILY) drank 1.5 to 2 gallons of milk daily. Even my 2 littles and I go through about 2 gallons a week, and we’re only home for supper! Milk is the only drink served with meals, with the exception of sometimes we have a little juice at breakfast.
I echo that you are *not* strange. We currently have two jerseys milking right now (not planned that way) and have an almost endless supply of milk.
We only have 4 kids at home right now and easily go through that much in a day. I prefer our raw milk over most other things.
Many good suggestions that I was going to add were given above…puddings are a great one. We make a coffee pudding with chocolate sauce, butterscotch pudding, chocolate and more. We experiment a lot with pudding, even making a “golden milk” pudding! We always add 2 eggs for each 8 cups of milk. Honey makes a great sweetener once it is taken off the element. Whole grain flour or cornstarch are the best thickeners we’ve found. Nothing else quite works. Since we have cream, whipped cream is close behind to top it off. You can always put pudding into a pie crust too.
One thing that was not mentioned is eggnog. You can have that for breakfast too. Add honey instead of sugar for absolutely no guilt. It helps these days if you have eggs from your own chickens.
You can also make a cream soup and put any type of veggies in it for a “cream of”…mushrooms, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, or do a Swedish Garden Soup (fresh garden veggies & herbs).
Traditionally, from cream, our family makes schmauntfat (cream gravy). Which is cream, thickened with flour, seasoned with salt, sometimes served with butter sautéed onion slices. This is always best mixed in a pan after frying up farmers sausage and served on homemade egg noodles or boiled potatoes. Yum!
With 7 kids(3 of them over 6 foot tall) I hear that all the time..you must go through so much milk!!but same as you Laura,it’s less than a gallon a week.Freezing it is a great idea I had never thought of!!thanks for the tip!
Just be aware that thawed milk does not have a very good texture for drinking, but it works in baking.