Milk and More

Considering milk is far cheaper from the supermarket, you would wonder why I prefer to have it delivered to my doorstep. But my milkman delivers much more than milk, and I can order eggs, yoghurt, a variety of hard cheeses, cottage cheese, thick Jersey cream, Greek yogurt, creme fraiche, freshly squeezed orange juice, butter and potatoes - and a whole lot more. Also I know that if the deliveries have not been taken in, my milkman will alert someone.
Apart from milk, all the above are either supermarket price or even cheaper, and on average, my milk bill is around £8 per week, often less.

One milk that is much cheaper from the milkman is Channel Island milk. Probably the only milk left where you can see the cream sitting at the top of the bottle, and many years ago, I tried a bit of suburban self-sufficiency and changed the order from full-cream milk (as we drank in those days), to Channel Island - albeit paying a penny a pint more. Using a turkey baster the cream was siphoned from the top (press the bulb before inserting it into the cream or air bubbles mix the cream with the milk) then decanted into a jug to keep in the fridge, more cream was added until I had at least a pint. Toppinp up the milk with cold boiled water, the bottle was given a shake and - hey presto, there was still a a pint of what had become (sort of) skimmed milk. The cream thickens slightly on keeping and can be poured over fruit pies, jellies etc, or put in a liquidiser and whizzed to make thick cream, or carried on further to turn into butter - the residual 'buttermilk' used to make scones. So by paying a few extra pennies we still had milk and the luxury of plenty of cream.
My children were very impressed the day I was able to serve up home-made scones, spread with home-made butter, topped with home-made jam and finally a dollop of thick home-made cream. I hope the memory stays with them as I don't think I have the energy to do it all again.

Around that time I also used to make my own yogurt, but latterly have started to use a dry yogurt mix with water. This does work well and making a litre at a time, lasts at least 2 to 3 weeks in the fridge given the chance.
Yogurt is a very useful 'ingredient'. Last week it was used for making Raita - a bowlful of Greek yogurt, folding in half a teaspoon of icing sugar*, some finely chopped mint and finely diced peeled and seeded cucumber. Served with a curry and much enjoyed. As the days go by there will be mentions of other great dishes using yogurt.
*Save money by grinding down granulated sugar in a blender - first it becomes caster sugar, then eventually icing sugar.

A final mention of keeping dried milk in store (keeps longer in the freezer). My family did not like the flavour, but I discovered by cheating (make up half a pint with water and then add it to half a pint 'real'milk, and pour it back into the bottle (to make them believe,that bit is important), they didn't even notice.