Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Everlasting milk

I hate milk.

There, I said it. I never liked milk, but as is common wisdom, milk gave you strong bones and made you tall. When I was in elementary school, the teachers in the cafeteria wouldn't let me leave until they had given my milk carton a good shake and there was nothing left inside. I would try to confuse them by filling up the carton with random garbage. My loving parents, in hopes that I would grow strong and tall, made me drink milk every morning. I kept up this routine until college, when I made my own decisions about what to eat in the morning (which was usually nothing, out of laziness).

When I started cooking, I learned that there were many dishes that require milk. Milk was everywhere, in béchamel, custards, mashed potatoes, all kinds of dishes. I didn't mind it in its other forms, but cooking with milk usually meant buying a carton at the supermarket, using it once, and letting the rest go to waste because it spoiled.

I kept up this pattern until recently, when I discovered aseptic milk. Aseptic milk, such as Horizon Organic, does not require refrigeration, and is in convenient 8 oz packages to minimize waste. Now, I know it doesn't taste exactly the same as refrigerated milk, but hey, I'm cooking with it, not drinking it. It sure beats the flavor of powdered milk. The best part is that I hardly waste milk anymore, and I no longer have to go to the grocery store whenever I encounter a recipe calling for milk. I buy it in bulk (from Whole Foods) and store it in the pantry. What a wonderful invention!

3 comments:

chiscotti said...

Hehe... they come in chocolate flavor too! Go down the drinks aisle at the Asian market and you'll find different flavors, in case you like milk better with chocolate or strawberry :)

Jason said...

@chiara - Man I hate chocolate milk. It's always so thick and sweet. I always had to dilute chocolate milk with regular milk to water it down. I've never had strawberry milk...

JudyEll said...

oh woh. i didn't know it was called "aseptic."