WHEY-ATE A MINUTE

Dairy and egg prices in my area, and maybe yours, have skyrocketed this year. 

Old Mother Frugal often cooks with soft cheeses such as cottage cheese and ricotta. However, an unwillingness to pay the high prices for these products sent me to the internet to find an alternative way to keep costs within my budget.

As a bonus, making my own soft cheese allows for the control of the salt content which is important for my health. Store bought ricotta and surprisingly, cottage cheese contains large amounts of sodium.

I began to notice that some grocery stores mark-down gallons of milk as their “best use by” date draws near.  To contain my costs for ricotta cheese, Old Mother Frugal waits for milk mark-downs and then prepares a cottage cheese/ricotta type of cheese.

My price point for a gallon of milk ranges between $0.99/gal to $1.49/gal. The only other ingredient needed for this product is a cup of vinegar.

Now, if you have a freezer and there is room to store a gallon of milk or two, milk can be frozen and used at a later time. If you come across a good mark-down price on milk, stock-up the freezer.  Defrosted milk can be used for drinking or cooking at a later date.

Once the cheese is made, there is an abundance of liquid remaining in the pot. This is the whey. Before you think about pouring that down the drain….whey-ate a minute! Cooled whey can be frozen into smaller one-cup portions and used in baking where milk or water is an ingredient.

Old Mother Frugal highly recommends going online and finding a recipe for homemade cottage or ricotta cheese. Don’t whey-ate an extra minute! Use homemade ricotta or cottage cheese the same way you would use either of these cheeses in any recipe. My preference is lasagna/ eggplant roll-ups or baked rigatoni.

A gallon of milk will yield 2+ cups of homemade cheese at a fraction of the cost of the store bought variety.

SOUND THE BUGLE! Today’s tip: The “best use by” date on a gallon of milk is not an expiration date. Milk can be frozen; if concerned that the gallon of milk will not be consumed by the “best used by” date, freeze the milk in 1 cup Ziploc bags for recipes at a later date that require milk as an ingredient. Adding 1 tsp of vinegar to the cup of milk will yield buttermilk in 5 minutes.