What on Earth can one do with six bags of dry milk? (In fact, I think there were more than that last time I checked, but I’m aware of there being at least six.) This is the insanity of living with old food hoarders, I tell ya.
I gave some of the dry milk away in the past, but they just keep getting two more bags of it each month, along with boxed 1% milk. The seniors I’m taking care of, that is. My mom would use it in baking, but she’s not well enough to make anything much, really.
That’s right… You’ll never know the difference if you use powdered milk in your baked goods. Especially if you account for the lack of fat. Bread, cinnamon rolls, cakes, and, well, everything that calls for milk. Even buttermilk pancakes, if you add a little vinegar to make it “sour.” (Or, just skip it, because it’s an ingredient you don’t have on hand, and enjoy what you get anyway.)
I don’t make any of that shit, honestly. So, what’s a girl to do?? I can’t consume milk myself, so I’m trying to eliminate dairy from their diet. It’s impossible with this crap that gets delivered to them every month. In fact, they have two month’s worth of delivery in the coat closet area that connects the house to the front entrance.
I gotta do something, or some day we’ll be drowning in a sea of cans and boxed milk. I’m on a mission to clear it out, so I’ve got to use everything up in those boxes by the time their next delivery comes… in just a few days! YIKES!
Let me tell you what comes in these boxes. I kinda glossed over it last entry, but let’s pretend you don’t give a shit about my Thanksgiving brain.
Senior Charity Food Box
- a bag of dry milk
- 1% boxed milk
- two boxes of knock-off brand cereal
- a bag of dry macaroni
- two cans tomato sauce
- two cans of fruit something-or-other
- four cans of vegetables
- one or two cans of salmon
- a brick of faux cheese food (like Velveeta)
- one or two cans of sliced potatoes (slime in a can)
- a packet of chicken in a sealed foil bag
- a packet of beef stew in a sealed foil bag
- a bottle of some sort of juice (pineapple, apple, orange, etc.)
*None of it is a recognizable brand.
There’s probably something I’m missing. Sometimes, the macaroni is in a box instead of a bag. It varies slightly as these volunteers and charitable persons try to put together a box of staples that don’t need refrigeration so that our seniors can enjoy typical American (USA) comfort foods.
Never mind that I’ve determined that dairy, gluten, and sugar are the trifecta of death and discomfort. Add to that a can or two of nightshades (poison)… and GMO corn products. Great! They’re gonna live forever!
I wonder if there will be any canned pumpkin in the next box or two, since you know, Thanksgiving is coming up soon. Pumpkin is the quintessential Thanksgiving fruit! (Or its cousin that Libby cans for ya. It’s not pumpkin, yo.)
If my parents were well, we’d be getting a full on ginormous pumpkin to scoop out all the seeds of, hack into bits, and then boiling to create puree. This process takes 1/4-1/2 a day to make an edible product… and then my mom freezes some of it and uses the rest in home-made pumpkin pies. Instead of buying a smaller pumpkin, she makes twice as much as she needs (or more) and just tosses in the freezer in a zip lock bag.
She’s gonna be mortified to find out I threw it all away. She didn’t put a date on them and I’ve seen things from an expiration date of 2012 in this household (off-brand stove top stuffing, specifically.) I’m not taking any chances… especially since they’ve been sick for years.
She’s so lazy about labeling I had to ask her what it was anyway. It’s okay, ma. I’ll make a fresh batch from a smaller pumpkin if you like. One fresh pumpkin pie from scratch. Yeah, I know. All you people using Libby. “I made it from scratch!” Uh-huh. And you bought that crust, too, didn’t you? Indeed.
It’s still one step closer from scratch than buying a pre-made pie, that’s for sure. And, you can control how much sugar goes in, which is nice. If you care about sugar intake. Which I do, but wouldn’t you know the sick people I live with just want it to taste like they remember? I daydream of doing half the sugar and half faux sugar, but it’s expensive. Super expensive.
At least Sam’s Club is finally catching on. The ingredients are slightly cheaper that way.
Anyway, you’re here to know what amazing things can be done with dry milk, aren’t you?
Alright. Obviously I run around the internet, looking stuff up. But… then I modify it after checking 6 or more recipes for the same thing. Yeah, that’s right! I take my food seriously! (And my gut.) Everything I make has homework before I make it. It can get tiring, but this is my job right now: feeding the people who live here. (Maybe some day I’ll remember to feed myself.)
Bread Pudding
- 6 pieces of bread, cubed or torn up
- 1/2 stick butter
- 1/2 cup raisins
- 2 cups dry milk, prepared
- 3/4 cup white sugar
- 2 eggs, beaten
- 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice extract
- 1 tbs vanilla extract
Rip up the bread in your baking dish. You can butter it if you like, but that’s a step I skip because I don’t care. Mix in the raisins to the bread by sprinkling them over the top. Melt the butter. Mix everything not in the baking dish yet together until well combined. Pour over your bread. Push the bread into that liquidy goodness until it’s all wet. Shove it in your pre-heated oven (350F) for 45 minutes.
And if you’re my mom, eat the whole fucking thing the day it’s made.
Well, my dad did get a little bit of it. This was meant to be his dessert, too. For myself and my mom, I made apple-peach-walnut whatever-the-fuck-that-was. It’s good but not over the top sweet (or full of dairy and sugar and GLUTEN.) The woman is gonna kill herself, I just know it.
Apple-Peach-Walnut Whatever-The-Fuck-That-Was
- 3 peaches, sliced then diced
- 3 apples, cored then diced
- 1 cup faux milk
- 1/4 cup faux brown sugar
- 1 stick faux butter
- 1 TBS vanilla extract
- Walnuts until visually satisfied
- AND IF I WAS SMART, 2 TSP CORN STARCH
Mix together your chopped up fruits in a large 9×13 type pan. Mix the milk, sugar, melted butter, and vanilla extract together. I used my trusty two cup liquid measuring cup in order to make fewer dishes. Throw in the corn starch if you want a sauce in there. Pour over the fruit. Throw walnuts on top until you’re happy. I didn’t chop them up, that’s for non-lazy people. Bake at 350F for 45 minutes, just like the rice pudding.
And then, if you’re my doof-brain self, you accidentally turn on the burner making tea in the middle of the night because grinding coffee is too loud and suddenly you come back 10 minutes later to your dessert boiling away and NO TEA! I was bummed, but with some quick-thinking, saved my day anyway. I moved the dessert off the heated burner and put the whistling tea kettle on instead. (Of course, to keep quiet and not wake up The Ancient Ones(TM), I watched it until it steamed to turn it off pre-whistle.)
It doesn’t matter what I do, honestly. Her gut is craving candida food. She will binge eat it every time because she tries to stop and then she gets mega cravings and then bam, she feeds that nasty shit in her system and sits around like Jabba the Hut all day. She’s just missing the girl on a chain as an accessory.
O. Wait.
That’s me.
I’m chained to the stove, baking more food for her to binge fucking eat. I watch her. She goes to WalMart and buys four packs of muffins and eats them all at once. And then she wonders why she’s not losing weight. Hello! I can tell you why! You’re not chewing enough to get the amylase into your gut to break all that shit down. You just open and shovel. (It’s in your SPIT, PEOPLE!)
Okay, well, I can resolve this. I’m going to have to if I want her to live, I guess. I’m ambivalent in general; she doesn’t seem to want to live. But, apparently, if I make her a yeast bomb dessert, she’ll finally unload the fucking dishwasher… so there’s that to consider.
Are you facing this problem? A loved one over-eating refined carbohydrates? They just keep bloating and acting sicker and sicker, don’t they? I can help!
You gradually replace what they’re craving with something else. It’ll let smaller amounts of the yeast and bad bacteria die off at a much more manageable rate, all while keeping taste buds happy. Then, one day, you wake up to a household that’s sugar free, dairy-free, and gluten-free. (Fingers crossed, anyway.) And then everybody loses weight and has no idea why, their blood test numbers correct themselves, and we all live forever! YAY! (Except we need to stop reproducing if we’re going to live forever. Here’s looking at you, breeders.)
It takes at least half a year, so you’re in this for a long-haul. If you start today, that’ll be about Easter. You can do this, I know it. I’m rooting for you! (And us!)
We must admit, we were pretty grumpy the old troll ate dad’s dessert. Mostly because we’re worried about her health, you know? But as they say, you can lead a horse to water…
Detox Phase 1:
Bread Pudding
- 4 slices gluten bread
- 2 slices non-gluten bread
- 2 tbs plant “butter”
- 4 tbs butter
- (Did I mention this was gonna suck?)
- 1/2 cup raisins
- 1.5 cups dry milk, prepared
- 0.5 cups plant milk
- 1/2 cup white cane sugar (granulated… the stuff you put on your cereal, heathen)
- 1/4 cup faux white sugar (erythritol, monkfruit, stevia, whatever)
- 2 eggs, beaten
- 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice extract
- 1 tbs vanilla extract
Rip up the bread in your baking dish. You can butter it if you like, but that’s a step I skip because I don’t care. Mix in the raisins to the bread by sprinkling them over the top. Melt the butter. Mix everything not in the baking dish yet together until well combined. Pour over your bread. Push the bread into that liquidy goodness until it’s all wet. Shove it in your pre-heated oven (350F) for 45 minutes.
I admit the pumpkin pie spice extract is optional… you probably want actual cinnamon if you’re gonna omit that baby. I just bought some to experiment with. That’s it.
See what I’m doing to make it healthier? Replacing 1/4 of the nefarious ingredients with health food, that’s what. You’re going to have to do this all the way to Halloween, maybe give or take two weeks. Your gut will thank me later. Don’t worry about portion control yet, it’ll just happen one day when all that nasty yeast is destroyed. Try adding more fat if you find you’re eating way too much at once. Might we suggest avocado oil?
I have another recipe I’ve put together to try. I HAVEN’T TRIED THIS YET… but I’m pretty sure it’s going to work like a dream anyway.
Detox Phase 1:
Experimental Custard Mix
- 0.25 cup sugar
- 0.25 cup “sugar”
- 1 cup corn starch
- 1 cup dry milk
Combine together. Even better if you powder it further in a blender or food processor.
CUSTARD
- 3 TBS mix
- 1.5 cups milk
- 0.5 cup “milk”
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 tbs cocoa powder (OPTIONAL)
You combine over heat until sugar dissolves, transfer to something to chill it in, and done. For something completely different, add 2 TBS cocoa powder while heating it through. The whisk is your friend! WHISK (ME) AWAY!
Now if you’re me, you live with someone who has three Sam’s Club sized canisters of hot chocolate, too. I figured out you can use that to substitute everything but the corn starch in the custard mix, which means you’re going to have hot chocolate goop. I’m not the biggest fan of cold hot chocolate flavor, but I bet someone out there is gonna love that idea. (My dad.)
Hot Chocolate Custard Mix
- 2 cups hot chocolate mix
- 1 cup corn starch
Mix all ingredients until evenly distributed.
Add 5 TBS of the mix to 2 cups of milk/faux milk over heat. Add vanilla if you wanna. Chill in the fridge, consume, call me in the morning.
If you’re really spunky, you could try combining the bread pudding with a runny version of the custard. (Personally, I find this idea disgusting, but I bet someone just said: GET IN MY BELLY!)
Now there was one more thing I wanted to conquer while thinking about actual milk products: FUDGE! (What life is complete without fudge?!)
Dry Milk Fudgy Fudge
- “condensed” dry milk:
– 1 c. dry milk
– 2/3 c. sugar
– 1/3 c. boiling water
– 1 stick butter, melted
(combine all over low heat until desired consistency. Add milk to thin as necessary.) - 1 bag of chocolate chips, if you’re lazy.
If you’re not so lazy, you can add 1/4 cup cocoa powder and 1/4 cup coconut oil or cocoa butter. I mean, it all depends on what’s in the pantry, amirite?
Or you could add some of that Swiss Miss and some cocoa butter or coconut oil. The world is YOUR oyster, after all.
Combine everything over heat or, better yet, do it in the microwave with short zaps of 15-30 seconds. We love lazy, yeah? Microwave it is. Mix it up until it’s all one color — it’s how the pros do it. Put it all in a freezer safe container and pop it into the freezer so you can eat it as fast as possible. (Obviously.) It might take two hours, but I’d check it after one.
Cut into squares (if it makes it that long) and store in an air-tight container in either the freezer or the fridge. If you have children who aren’t taught their portions (or in this case, troll-like gnarled old people), it’ll probably disappear in two days.
Just remember, we do not endorse dairy products. We merely have to use it up because it’s already here, trying to take over the household by force.
Angel-Sansara 