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?