Oh, thank you for this link! I will order some of those Finnish cultures. In the old days, I just used a store-bought yogurt with live cultures as a starter. Now I’ve got some with a good selection of bacteria that I picked up at the health food store.
My grandmother made viiliä all the time. Just left it lying out until it cultured, and ate the cream off the top, and fed the rest to the dogs and cats.
I’d thought about adding powdered milk to thicken it, but I found that scalding the milk and incubating it long enough made it thick enough.
We’re not big milk drinkers here. There’s just two of us and milk in the dairy case is $1.49 for a half gallon and $1.69 for a gallon.
We’ve fallen for the whole $.20 for twice as much thinking way too often. I’m at the point where I can not allow myself to waste. I just recently bought a box of powered milk with envelopes that make a quart at a time. I bought some zip lock snack sized bags and used my digital scales to measure it in to 1/4 packets and only make a cup or two at a time for cooking and baking.
No more waste. I will buy fresh milk when I have a hankering for cereal or pudding, but for what i actually “use” I’m happy that there is a powdered option available…
I have a lot of bread recipes that call for it. That’s my only use.
It’s good for cooking, not so much for use as actual milk. Powdered milk makes it easy to always have milk on hand for things like biscuits and milk gravy, even if you don’t feel like lugging liquid home from the store. I don’t think it tastes a damn thing like the un-powdered stuff no matter how it’s reconstituted, but if what you need is a source of proteins to make starch into dough, it works great. It stays good forever as far as I can tell, or at least as long as you can keep bugs out of it.
I also add it to powdered cocoa and hot chai, where the taste of the drink masks the not-milk-ness of it. I don’t drink coffee myself, but I imagine it works fine there, too.
I have a couple bread recipies that call for powdered rather than liquid milk.
I sometimes throw some into oatmeal.
Basically, I use it for cooking.
Powdered milk and cheese were given away free by a gov program in the 1980’s. I drove some people to pick it up every month for a couple years.
They gave me some of the powdered milk and I used it to make cream of wheat hot cereal. Also good in oatmeal.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,953288,00.html
milk give away
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=336&dat=19820707&id=LfVSAAAAIBAJ&sjid=LoMDAAAAIBAJ&pg=5086,1300089
When I lived in an area where food was seasonal and unreliable, I used it as an all-purpose nutrition booster. You can throw a few spoonfuls into cooked grains, breads, pasta sauces, casseroles, etc. for some quick and easy high-quality calories. It’s like magic extra nutrition powered for the moderately deprived.
Other than that, I used it to make yogurt, cream sauces and to make milky drinks (hot chocolate, etc.) richer. I’m not a big milk drinker, so it’s helpful to have some shelf-stable milk in the house if I happen to need it.
Our office has cream for coffee and 2% milk. Both are way too “creamy” for me, so I have some powdered skim milk for my tea. I don’t know why anyone would use “non-dairy creamers” when you could use powdered milk. (Powdered whole, if you like creamy.)
My bread machine recipes usually call for it, too, so there’s that.
Also, I don’t live without tea, hot, strong and with milk. If we’ve gone through all the milk and I don’t want to go to the store, it’s there in a pinch for my tea.
Now I will have to search the web for how to make your own yoghurt. I remember reading about it back in the 70s (oh, boy, I feel old) but hadn’t thought of doing it for years.
I keep some in the emergency food storage (you know, with canned goods and bottled water and stuff, in case of power loss due to natural disaster.) We now live inland by about sixty miles, but I’m just in the habit of keeping a hurricane stash. Besides, we’re in the area that would have tornadoes on the outskirts of a hurricane, so power loss wouldn’t be too surprising.
Grandmother used to get Food for Poor Geezers boxes every month, and she would give me the powdered milk for cooking and baking. My best friend from school used to have powdered milk served at her home in lieu of regular milk, and that stuff is just vile for consuming outright. After visiting a time or three, I learned to feign lactose intolerance and just had toast or a banana instead of cereal for breakfast.
Same here; made a loaf yesterday with a recipe that called for powdered milk. I believe it adds protein to the recipe without adding moisture.
I keep a box on hand for ‘emergencies.’ In my case, that’s not power loss due to storms or whatever but when I screwed up the shopping. It works perfectly well in cooking, so you can still have the waffles or scalloped potatoes or whatever that you planned.
Way back when I was a broke college student I used to use it on my cereal. The secret was to reconstitute it hours before using. I’d measure my cup of dry cereal and three tablespoons of dry milk (I think that was the amount) and 1/2 c. water into a plastic dish with a snap on lid. Give the dish a good shaking, and stick it into the fridge. If I noticed it later on, I’d give it another shake.
In the morning I’d nuke the container and eat hot raisin bran mush. Yum. (No, not really, but it was something hot and cheap and fast and college kids can eat anything.)
You can also do it with quick type oats, but I forget how much to put in for a serving.
Mix it with water to make milk.
Now ask what I do with baby powder.
It’s great to use in bathwater too. Silky soft.
Mix it with baby oil?
I used it at university for cooking, as I couldn’t rely on any milk I stored in the fridge to still be there after a day. I never used it to drink, though - I just drank black tea and coffee.
I used it in a bath once when I had really bad mosquito bites all over my legs. It worked really well!
I also use it to make milk since I don’t keep milk in the fridge. And I use it in recipes when called for.
It’s a key ingredient in the peanut butter squares they serve at our local school cafeteria. It gives you fat and protein without liquid, and without having to use raw eggs.