Needing to use up an abundance of milk is a problem I never saw coming. Fermenting pickles makes a lot of sense when you’re staring down bushels of fresh vegetables and I’ve been there. But milk?
I actually think this is a common “problem” to have on a homestead. Dairying – the process of making various foods such as butter, cheese, and various dairy cultures – is a way to not only prolong the shelf life of that milk but also create delicious and varied items to put on the table and make the most of that milk.
I’ve been doing a bit of this on a smaller scale with goat milk recently and thought today I would share the simple things I make to add goat milk variety to our everyday foods.
We don’t have a ton of space in our solar-powered refrigerator so I try to use up a gallon of something approximately every couple of days. We’re also not all milk drinkers here so I try to keep a few options on hand for those of us who would rather eat our goat milk with a spoon or fork.
These two basic cultured dairy staples are almost always on tap at our house:
Yogurt
I think this is non-negotiable in our home and perhaps the most obvious choice. Lately I have been making 1-2 gallons of goat milk yogurt per week using this method and a thermophilic yogurt starter. Straight yogurt gets dished up on a daily basis as snacks or with breakfast porridge or fruit.
In order to turn this delicious tangy stuff into one more food option, I’ve been making Greek yogurt and thick yogurt cheese. In the past I’ve used Butter Muslin or clean towels to strain the whey from the yogurt. Just recently, however, I discovered this Greek Yogurt Maker and I can’t recommend it enough. I am not a gadget kind of girl but I love this thing. It is so much easier to clean than Butter Muslin and tea towels and it works really, really well. I’ve even been using it for the draining stage of soft cheesemaking, which I’ll share next time.
Milk Kefir
The thing that I am making every single day is milk kefir. We love this stuff for smoothies and salad dressings and I especially love it for how easy it is to make. In just a couple of minutes we’ve got another quart of milk kefir on the way. And when the kefir piles up you can make a soft cheese, similar to yogurt cheese, and even a hard cheese.
These two items use up a fair amount of milk and give us ingredients to make smoothies, desserts, dips, salad dressings, and delicious breakfast bowls. Next time I’ll show you a bit of the cheesemaking I’ve been getting started with.
Do you practice home dairying? What do you make with milk?
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