No use crying over spoilt milk

For the last two weeks, two delicious half-gallons of Ozark Mountain Creamery milk were sitting in our fridge, waiting...and waiting...and waiting. I was so worried that they would spoil, and yet I was too busy eating and drinking other things to care. Talk about first-world problems.

Anyway, Jon succeeded in drinking it all. That boy has a talent. (Well, a lot of talents, but milk-drinking is surely among them.) Then this evening, Susie knocked the empty glass milk jug off our kitchen floor, where it hit the tile and shattered into a million gazillion pieces.

And now she's sitting on my stomach, pretending to not remember. Sneaky.

I have a lot of strange habits, but here's a weird one: I distrust food that's been around for too long. I don't like eating the last two pieces of ham in a package. I'll eat everything in the fridge before I eat that apple that's slightly shriveled...until it slimes and I throw it in the compost bucket. Sometimes I make a conscious effort to use the last of something in a recipe. But two days before the sell-by date, I start eying that milk suspiciously. On the sell-by date, I push it off on friends or make yogurt out of it. After the sell-by date, I consider it spoilt.

Now, I know that often things are perfectly fine past their dates. I eat eggs months past their dates (crack 'em into a bowl first, though). It's not the date that bothers me - it's how long the container has been opened, and how much of it is gone.

I think this strange notion of freshness comes from growing up with Dad, who owns and runs a grocery store. One of the great perks to this job is that if the man wants ham for lunch, he brings home a package of ham and eats a ham sandwich. Unfortunately for some of his fridge-mates, he often forgets to check the fridge for the three half-empty packages of ham already in there. Which brings the grand total to four packages of ham. We also had a small family, and (again- grocery store) lots of food items to choose from. So it might take us a month or two to get through the four packages of ham. Which means the last two or three slices are gross. This also kept me (and I guess, everyone else?) from eating those last two or three slices, so it was a self-fulfilling prophecy.

But the real reason I don't drink milk past the sell-by date is that I know there are perfectly good uses for it after it has spoiled. I'm not talking about chunky, color-changing spoilage. I'm talking about milk that's just sour - it might have minor curdles, but the scent doesn't bowl you over. You can use milk in this state for most recipes that call for buttermilk. Pancakes, muffins, some yeast breads, cornbread,* and Jon's favorite, buttermilk biscuits. I've tried a few recipes, but I like this one the best. Don't let its lack of fat put you off - they're delicious, without being too heavy. And Jon can make them in under a half-hour, so they're not too complicated! Enjoy!

Love,

Katie

*Remind me to post about cornbread sometime. It's a long story!

Wheat Buttermilk Biscuits 

Adapted from the "Classic Biscuits" in Crescent Dragonwagon's
(yes, that's her name)  Passionate Vegetarian

1 cup white flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

2 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 tbsp cold butter (if you're using unsalted, add a smidge more salt)

1 tbsp vegetable oil

3/4 to 1 cup buttermilk (or sour milk)

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Sift the dry ingredients together into a large bowl. Cut the butter into pieces and drizzle the oil over the bowl. Blend it all together quickly with a pastry blender until thoroughly mixed and crumbly. Add the 3/4 cup buttermilk and stir until the milk is mixed in, and there aren't major puddles lurking about. Then use your hands to work the dough into a ball. If it's still too crumbly, add more buttermilk, but don't overmix! Give it about 4-5 good squeezes and then pat it out into a rectangle on a floured surface. Cut with a pizza cutter into the size you want (I usually do about 2-3 inches square). Place on a greased cookie sheet and bake 10-12 minutes.

You can add herbs, honey, raisins, oatmeal - the possibilities are limited only by your imagination. Ms. Dragonwagon has quite a list of variations in her book, so if you haven't checked it out, I recommend it! The library doesn't seem to have it at the moment :( but you can borrow mine or check out the Google Books preview - or request that the library order another copy!