milk Archives | Heavenly Homemakers

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.

milk (1)

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.

peach milkshakes 1

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.

What to do with Milk You Need to Use Up

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.

buttermilk

Make Shakes

We’ll go through a half gallon of milk pretty easily if I make it chocolate. :)

milkshakes

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).

garlicchickenpastasm

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?

I’ve been sharing quite a bit about coffee treats lately. Iced Coffee, Homemade Chocolate Frappe, Chocolate Whipped Cream for Coffee…yum. This is great for everyone except for those who don’t like coffee, right? Yes, well. This post should take care of that.

My family definitely fits into the “don’t like coffee” category of people. In fact, they really don’t understand why I’ve suddenly started loving the stuff. Okay by me. It’s the one and only food/drink in this house I get all to myself. Ha! It’s mine. All mine!! (she says, lovingly.)

So for all the “don’t like coffee” people out there, including my family, who thinks my Homemade Chocolate Frappe looks really good but tastes really bad – here’s what I’ve come up with as a delicious alternative. Icy Cold Milkshake Treats. Instead of starting out with coffee ice cubes, simply start out with regular ice cubes. Instead of adding cold coffee and milk, simply add cream and milk. Instead of adding chocolate…oh wait. We’re still adding chocolate. Unless you want straight up vanilla. That works too.

Icy Cold Milkshake Treats

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Prep time

5 mins

Total time

5 mins

Author: Laura

Recipe type: Milkshake

Serves: 3 servings

Ingredients

2 cups ice cubes
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1 cup whole milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Liquid stevia to taste (I use about 10 drops NuNaturals brand)
3 Tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder (omit if you prefer a vanilla milkshake)

Instructions

Blend ingredients together until slushy-like. Serve right away.

You’ll love how easy this is, how “real food” this is, and how it’s a treat completely void of sugar. It doesn’t get any better. (Unless you add coffee, but we’ve been through this already.)

Icy Cold Milkshake Treats

Most of the ingredients in the list are in “give or take” proportions. You’ll figure this out if you actually try to measure 2 cups of ice cubes. Rectangle shaped ice cubes don’t cooperate very well in a round measuring cup.

In addition, you may want your shake to be creamier, smoother, sweeter, chocolatier, or with coffee. Oh wait. This one doesn’t have coffee in it. Well anyway, feel free to add more or less of any of the above listed ingredients to make this shake just what you want it to be.

As for me, I’m going to stick with the Homemade Chocolate Frappe. And I’m going to drink the entire blender of coffee goodness all by myself because no one else in my house likes it so I don’t have to share, so ha! (she says, with kindness.)

What do you think? Which will you like better? And which will your family members like better?