What to do With Milk that is About to Expire

It's not very often that I can find milk for half price.  I bought two jugs of skim milk that were a couple of days from expiring.  Believe it or not, I purchased this milk on Dec 31(wow, that was lat year!), the expiry date is Jan 3, and today is Jan 14.  I opened this jug two days ago (9 days after the expiry date) after ignoring it in the fridge for a while and it has not gone sour!!!!!  

So, what can you do with milk that is near expiry and needs to be used up?

• Freeze it.  Since it's not really convenient to freeze a whole four liters of milk, freeze it in smaller portions.  Use an ice cube tray if you want really small amounts or using a muffin tin will give you approximately 1/2 cup portions.  Once it is frozen, remove to a plastic bag and then keep frozen until you want to use it for a recipe.  I freeze a lot of liquids in 1 cup volumes and I do this by placing all the plastic cups in the house on a cookie sheet and then filling them up to 1 cup measurements.
• Bake with it, double or triple your recipe and put the rest in the freezer.
• Make a big pot of a cream-type soup for supper.
• Have a hot chocolate night!

If the milk is just starting to turn sour, you can still bake with it or freeze it and bake with it later, there shouldn't be any taste difference.

Spicy Buttermilk Pancakes

1 large egg
2 cups buttermilk (instead of buttermilk, place 2 tbsp of vinegar in your measuring cup and then fill the rest of the way to get two cups)
3 tbsp cooking oil

2 cups flour
2 tbsp granulated sugar
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp allspice

Beat egg in a small bowl until smooth.  Mix in milk (buttermilk) and cooking oil.

Measure remaining 8 ingredients into a medium bowl.  Stir.  Add egg mixture.  Stir just to moisten.  A few remaining lumps are fine.  Fry 1/4 cup portions on greased frying pan or griddle.  When bubbles form and edges appear dry, turn to brown other side.  No need to grease pan between batches.  Makes about 15 pancakes.  This recipe is for one batch.  I doubled it to use up more milk, served a bunch of pancakes to the kids for breakfast, and put the rest in the freezer.  To use from the freezer, remove amount of pancakes need and reheat in the microwave.  

Cinnamon Waffles

1 1/2 cups flour

2 tbsp granulated sugar

1 tbsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp cinnamon

2 large egg whites, room temp

2 large egg yolks

1/4 cup butter or hard margarine, melted

1 1/2 cups milk

Stir first four ingredients together in a bowl.

Beat egg white in a separate bowl until stiff.  (This adds some fluffiness to the batter and give the waffles a lighter texture.  If I'm feeling lazy, I just add the eggs to the batter without beating them.)

Using the same beaters, beat the egg yolks in a separate bowl.  Add the butter and milk and mix well. If you melted the margarine and it is hot, wait for it to cool down a bit and then add it slowly while beating.  If you just dump it in, the heat could cause the eggs to start to cook.  Add this to the dry ingredients and beat to mix.  Fold in beaten eggs whites.  Cook in hot waffle iron until browned, using about 1/3 cup of batter per waffle.  Makes about 12 waffles.  I tripled this recipe to use up some milk.  The kids ate a bunch for breakfast the next day and I froze the rest.  I find these reheat nicely in our toaster oven, but don't leave in for very long or they will dry out.  You just want them to heat enough to crisp them up a bit.