Here are the items you will need to start mixing your milk. Personally, I use a Sterilite 1 gallon jug that you can get at Wal-mart for a couple of dollars. It has an easy pour spout and has measurement lines for your water. Best of all it fits well in my fridge door.

Fill your jug with half of the water you will need. If you are making a gallon of milk then add 3 C. of powdered milk. Mix with a wire wisk.

The milk should look like this. It will be thicker, but don’t worry we’ll add the rest of the water later.

There are two tricks you can do to milk your milk taste fantastic! The first is to add 1 1/2 t. sugar.

The other is to add 1 t. of vanilla (which is about a cap ful).
See which one/both of the tricks your family likes best.

Then add in the rest of the water and mix again. Your milk will be a little frothy and because of that you may not be able to fit all of the water in the jug. Make sure to add a little more water to it before serving. (I’ve found that adding just a little more water than is called for also helps a great deal.)

This is a MUST!!! You HAVE TO, HAVE TO, HAVE TO serve the milk chilled. There is nothing worse than WARM powdered milk.

I taught my mom these tricks and now they drink powdered milk too. In fact, she had my niece over once and served her some milk from the jug and she didn’t even bat an eyelash that anything may be different. So again I say, DON’T warn your family. Just see what they do.

If you’re worried that your family isn’t ready to go straight powdered milk, don’t worry! Mine wasn’t either. We began by mixing it half and half with whole milk which creates 2% milk. Then we mixed it half and half with 2% milk and got skim milk. Now we just drink powdered milk. It’s great! I never have to worry about how much to buy, if we’re running out, or the rising cost of milk. Even if you never go straight powdered milk, mixing your powdered milk with store bought milk is a great way to extend the expensive milk and save you MONEY!

To visit Crystal’s blog to learn more about using food storage everyday in your own recipes, click HERE.

Evaporated Milk was created back in the 40′s as a way to replace expensive cream and whole milk in recipes. It is whole milk with more than half the water removed before it is homogenized. DO NOT USE IT AS A SUBSTITUTE FOR SWEETENED CONDENSED MILK. However, you can use it to substitute for half and half. Isn’t that great?! I know I don’t keep half and half stocked in my fridge. Use Evaporated Milk, made from your food storage, in any recipe by doubling the amount of the dry powdered milk and leaving the water the same. As a good rule of thumb to go by, for normal milk made from your powdered milk it is 3 T. dry powdered milk per 1 C. water and don’t forget there are 16 T. in a cup.

Evaporated Milk (12 oz. Can)
1 1/2 C. Water
1/2 C. + 1 T. Powdered Milk

Doesn’t that look delicious?! It was unbelievable, WAYYYYY better than anything you can buy in the store and TONS cheaper!! Just think this recipe makes 3 cups (24 oz.) of sauce for under $2.50 and a Smuckers bottle only comes with 11.5 oz. and costs $3.00, that means it would cost $6.25 to buy this much hot fudge at the store! You’ve got to make this a staple in your fridge!

Hot Fudge Sauce – Makes 3 Cups (From Betty Crocker’s Cookbook)
1 can (12 oz.) Evaporated Milk (1 1/2 C. water + 1/2 C. & 1 T. Powdered Milk)
2 C. Semisweet Chocolate Chips
1/2 C. Sugar
1 T. Butter or Margarine (Spreads with at least 65% vegetable oil)
1 t. Vanilla

1. In a 2-quart sauce pan mix your evaporated milk with a whisk. Add chocolate chips and sugar and heat over MEDIUM heat, stirring constantly until it boils.

2. Remove from heat and stir in butter and vanilla. Let cool for at least 30 minutes or until sauce behins to thicken. Serve warm. Store your remaining sauce covered in the refrigerator up to 4 weeks. Sauce become firm when refrigereated; heat slightly before serving (saue will become thin if overheated).

**Just as a side note for those who live in an area where Kroger brand items are sold. They now have a great knock off on the Dryers 1/2 fat slow churned ice cream for a fraction of the cost**

To visit Crystal’s blog to learn more about using food storage everyday in your own recipes, click HERE.

If your family is particular and has favorite cookie recipes don’t be afraid to pick a couple out that would hide the wheat well. Here are some tips to help you know which recipe would be right to sneak wheat into:

1. Any cookie recipe with oats will mask the wheat because the oats already give a “hearty” feel to the cookies

2. Brown sugar in the recipe will mask any extra brown coloring from the wheat and help make the cookie more chewie. So a recipe that calls for all brown sugar would be ideal.

3. Chocolate is a strong flavor that will mask even the pickiest eaters taste buds.

4. You don’t have to start out replacing all the all-purpose flour with wheat flour. Start out doing 1/2 and 1/2 and work your way up to all wheat flour.

5. Use white wheat. White wheat doesn’t have the strong taste that red wheat has and is much easier hidden in things like cookies.

6. Don’t warn your family before they try it. They will assume that the cookie is how you always make it.

Now for the cookies…

To prove my point, this next recipe is brand new to me. I noticed it on the back of my bag of Craisins and knew it would be perfect to put wheat in. It has oatmeal, calls for only brown sugar, and has chocolate in it (sound good to you?). They are delicious and probably my favorite so far. They are perfectly crisp on the outside and chewie on the inside.

Oatmeal Cranberry White Chocolate Chunk Cookies

To visit Crystal’s blog to learn more about using food storage everyday in your own recipes, click HERE.