Powdered Milk

or Yikes! When Did Powdered Milk Become More Expensive than Fresh Milk?

Last night I had Ward pick up some powdered milk at the store because many of the recipes for my bread machine use it, and I had decided it was time to branch out from the bread we usually make. I didn't think any more about this until Theo was looking at the receipt and said that powdered milk was really expensive. Upon further investigation, we figured out that when reconstituted, powdered milk was about twice as expensive as fresh milk per gallon.* What? When did that happen?

When Ward and I were kids, both of our mothers had powdered milk in the cupboard because it was a money saver--especially since they had a lot of kids around who drank a lot of milk. (I thought nothing of having two or three glasses of milk with supper-growing girl and all). Even though powdered milk was quite a bit cheaper than regular milk, no one liked the taste. However, our mothers tried their best to get us to drink it. They would mix the regular milk and powdered milk together to hide some of the taste and make the regular milk last longer. They also tried serving it ice cold when it was said that you couldn't taste the difference between the two. My mother even tried mixing it with Nestle's Quik.

However, no one was very happy with their experiments. At Ward's house, it was an acceptable drink although not preferable. But it was a no go at my house. My father was raised on a farm with fresh-from-the-cow milk every day, and the powdered milk just didn't cut it. My sisters and I really didn't like the taste, so we were secretly siding with my father. So after a valiant try, my mother gave up. I even once or twice tried powdered milk with Wally and Theo because I thought it was my duty as a mother. And they didn't like it any better than I did. And just for nostalgic reasons, today Ward made himself a glass to see if it tasted as bad as he remembered. The look on his face told me that things hadn't changed.

So in my mind, powdered milk has always been there as the bad tasting, but inexpensive, nutritional alternative to regular milk. But somewhere along the way, things changed. It got expensive. More expensive than regular milk. I wondered why and did a bit of reading. And you know what I figured out? It's a very confusing issue. Price supports, weather, disgruntled cows and a customer preference for cheese may be involved.

So what is the conclusion to all of this? The more things change, the more they remain the same. Powdered milk still tastes bad.

*This was comparing milk prices in the same store. We did this in two different stores and found the same thing.

Thankful Sunday--February 24, 2013

I am thankful for brownies.

Gooey, Chocolatey, Simple Bites of Heaven

Today...

Today, I'm going to try not to be irritable and prickly.

Some days when I wake up, I feel prickly like this honey locust. I have to remember that my mood is my choice and I have to work on changing it. A walk outdoors is always a good start for me.

Food Waste Friday and True Food Confessions--Feb. 22, 2013

It's time for Food Waste Friday, when the Frugalgirl encourages us to post pictures from the previous week of wasted food from our household. This accountability hopefully will help us to be more careful with our food and maybe save some money. Also, I am using this public forum to encourage us to eat out less which includes better meal planning. You can follow how we are doing in this endeavor by reading True Food Confessions.

This Week's Food Waste

 None!

    None!

              None!

This Week's True Food Confessions

In the center is a cabbage roll--our new recipe for the week.

 
This week, when we had our favorite takeout pizza, I realized that we hadn't had it for at least two or three weeks. Remarkable, considering we had it at least twice a week before. And yes, it tasted as good as we remembered. We had the rest of our vegetable-rich meals at home. While the carnivores in the family would have preferred a big steak, they didn't complain when meat was only a condiment in most of our dishes. However, the best treat we had required no cooking--grapefruit. This is the time of year for citrus and these grapefruits were certainly proof of that.

The new recipe we tried was Stuffed Cabbage with Tangy Tomato Sauce. I got the recipe out of the latest Prevention magazine, but it is also available online. The recipe was good, but was not hit-out-of-the park good. Everyone had several servings, but gave it only decent reviews. Theodore and Ward thought it was too sweet. The recipe called for 2 tablespoons of sugar and I would cut that in half next time I made them. And speaking of next time I make them, I would change the recipe quite a bit procedurally. There were entirely too many steps for me. You had to make the sauce and simmer it, and you had to cook the cabbage multiple times to get the leaves off to stuff, and you had to cook the rice, and you had to brown the meat and onion. And then you had to assemble it all and cook it in the crock pot for five hours. Golly, that's a week's worth of meal preparations for me.   However, we do like the combination of cabbage and tomatoes, so next time I will probably use this recipe as a basis for a cabbage stew. Or I'll just let Theo make it. He made an excellent cabbage-tomato soup recently with just a little of this and a little of that.


So how would I rate this week overall? Pretty good. However, I can feel that we're starting to slip a little. That's because I start too late to cook. Then I'm tired or something else I have put off is calling me louder than the kitchen. I'm going to try to get some of the prep work done before I go to work. That should help. Until next time...

A Second Look--February 20, 2013

We continue to have a little snow everyday or two, but not enough to last. Also, I haven't seen as many birds at the feeder recently, but I think that is because I'm not watching at the right times. They come in groups intermittently and you have to be watching at the right times or you will miss them. However, the crows come every morning around breakfast time, so I always get a good show from them. Ward and Theo went on one of the walks with me this week. I always find it interesting to see what someone else notices. Ward found another bone and Theo found an old ball, both things I would have missed on my own.

Here's what we saw this week during our Second Look.

Crocus pushing up through the mulch.

It was snowing very large flakes this morning.

This was the only feather in the area.

Sometimes when a lot of crows fly in, I feel like I'm in the movie, The Birds.

Fungus on a rotting tree stump

Something rooted up this clump of moss.

Theo's ball

I think this bone was part of a bird.