I Havent't Cooked Today, or Miller Answers A Question

So, today was a leftovers day, except the pancakes I made for L and J this morning. And let’s face it, if you have a single cookbook or access to the interwebs, you can find a pretty simple pancake recipe anywhere. So, instead of sharing a recipe, I’m going to share a question I received from a friend on facebook. The question read as follows:

“QUESTION, oh cooking guru. I’ve got the majority of a pint of cream (with a high fat content, but not enough for me to call it heavy cream) that i opened two weekends ago - its from a local farmer, so no expiration date. It doesn’t smell/taste sour, but since I only drink it in tea and use it for bakingI have no idea if it tastes right. Think I can still use it for baking?”

And the answer comes in two parts.

If you have pasteurized milk or cream (or any dairy for that matter), and you think it smells a wee bit funky, or it’s passed its date, toss it. There’s no use for it anymore. It didn’t turn into buttermilk, it didn’t turn into sour cream, it turned into a possibility for food-born illnesses. So please, THROW AWAY ANY SPOILED PASTEURIZED DAIRY!

Now, it’s it’s raw milk or cream, there is much fun yet to be had. Raw milk, because it hasn’t had any pasteurizing done to it, is full of probiotics or “good bacteria”. You know those things people take for digestive health? Yeah, that’s what’s in your milk. It’s a good thing, I promise! When raw milk goes sour, it doesn’t go bad, just…well, sour. What’s happened is the probiotics, our little friends within, have started to eat/use up the lactose, causing the milk to no longer taste sweet. So, by definition, yes, you have sour milk, but that’s okay when it’s raw dairy. In fact, you can do SO MUCH with soured raw milk!

You can use it in cooking still; it may just add a slightly sour taste to whatever you put it in, like buttermilk but not the same thing. Use it in pancakes or waffles, you’ll love them! Make macaroni and cheese, delicious! Heck, you can even put it in your hair as a fabulous conditioner. The sky’s the limit basically. Make yogurt or kefir, with it, that way you get more bang for your buck when it comes to probiotics!

The benefits of raw dairy are innumerable. In our personal experience though, I can tell you that L put on a bunch of weight after we started him on it, and he doesn’t suffer so horridly from allergies anymore. Sadly though, not all states are in agreement that raw dairy is good for you. Some officials will tell you that it’ll give you food poisoning or salmonella or any number of ridiculous things. To that I will simply say this: our grandparents didn’t call it ‘raw milk’, they just called it milk, and they turned out no worse for ware.

If you have any food or cooking related questions, don’t be shy! I don’t bite very hard!

Until next time my culinary comrades,
Miller