Recreating fresh dairy

[AvocadosBeforeMortgages]

Dairy is one of those things I can see running out quite quickly - particularly imported cheeses. I'd really like to maintain my supply of dairy if supplies are interrupted - else I'll be onto a vegan diet

So far, the ideas I have are

• milk = UHT or powdered
• yoghurt = Easiyo
• butter = buy salted, stick it in the freezer and hope for the best (I'm assuming fresh cream for churning your own will be in equally shorter supply)
• cheese = the ricotta style cheese from powdered milk that someone else posted; Emmi fondue; freezing parmesan and cheddar (more suggestions very welcome)

But I haven't a clue about options for

• sour cream / creme fraiche (quite important to me, used mainly in cooking)
• double cream
• blue cheese (will it survive freezing and still be as nice?)
• eggs (used to keep chickens, circumstances make it no longer viable)

[user187656748]

Yoghurt - yes to the easiyo but buy the powders now if you use theirs (otherwise a stock of dried milk and a starter)
butter - will freeze or you can buy tinned - alternatively ghee can be bought in all supermarkets
cheese - will freeze it just goes crumbly. Blue cheese does the same but no problem with taste. Personally I'm buying some cheese wax and I'm going to wax loads of shop bought cheddar. primula is also shelf stable if you buy the right tubes.

Cream wil also freeze but I'd only use it in cooking afterwards

On the non dairy front eggs will also freeze. I have dozens and dozens at the moment. Crack into a muffin tin, freeze and then bag up. Again I would only use for baking not for frying/poaching etc.

[user187656748]

With milk I personally think tins of evaporated watered down with water is a better option than powdered.

[bellinisurge]

You can get powdered egg off Amazon I have some but have never opened it.
I'm thinking of getting some hard cheese like the stuff you have for Italian meals. Obviously not as good as the real stuff - bit of a mantra on this topic, I think .
The liquid in tinned chickpeas (or, I presume, the water you boil soaked dried ones in is supposed to be an egg white substitute that vegans use. Can't remember the name.
You can make nut milk as well - soaking cashews or almonds.
There are also yeast flakes with B12 - again a vegan thing that actual vegans know more about. Supposed to give a cheesy flavour to things.
You can add your own facial expression to that one,
I'm a massive dairy fan so this would be the big "I miss" for me

[bellinisurge]

Oo - and ghee that a pp has already mentioned.
We used to make yoghurt when it was a kid but we used some sort of electrical device- even in 70s.
I saw a cool making yoghurt vlog on Prepsteaders.

[user187656748]

If you have an easiyo already then its a good option for yoghurt since you don't need power.

I bought a starter set a few weeks ago in the sale which had sachets with it too so I effectively paid £3 for mine. Bargain.

[MotherWol]

UHT cream is popular in France, so I wonder if it’s available online? There’s non-dairy cream from Alpro/Oatly etc which is shelf stable and has a long shelf life.
Paneer is easy to make at home with UHT or powdered milk. I’ve not tried making labneh (yogurt cheese) but apparently that’s pretty simple too. Ghee is shelf-stable and while it’s not as nice on toast as real butter, it’s good for cooking.

[Snugglepumpkin]

Nestle sell UHT tinned extra thick cream, but it tends to have no more than a 6 month to 1 year shelf life.
My local Tescos stock it, some Sainsburys do too.

Easiyo yoghurts are fab (I love the Lemon & Vanilla varieties) and tend to have about a year on them, I have however made them 3 months after their best before successfully.

[smerlin]

UHT milk doesn't actually have a massive shelf life itself (obviously significantly more than fresh but only 6 months or so I think)

[MotherWol]

I've been learning to make yogurt from scratch; it's actually much easier than I expected. So far I've been using UHT or fresh milk, but I'm going to have a try with dried milk next. Fresh milk always seems to be one of the first things that run out when there's a disruption, and it's hard to stockpile much UHT milk as it's bulky and doesn't have a particularly long shelf life. Dried milk doesn't taste as nice as fresh, but it's easier to store, so I'm thinking if it makes decent yogurt, that's one option for calcium/dairy purposes. You just need a little fresh live yogurt as a starter, but you can freeze that in ice cubes.

Next weekend I'll have a try using only dried milk and a few tbsp of Easiyo as a starter to see if I can make tasty yogurt using only shelf-stable ingredients; will report back. The Easiyo is currently on offer in Lakeland which makes it very cost effective.

[bellinisurge]

Thanks @MotherWol !

[IFeelSorryForMillie]

ohh whilst on the Lakeland page I found they do sachets of dried butter, bit pricey mind, but you get 40. I had a quick Google and can't see anyone else selling them.

[OVAgroundWOMBlingfree]

Not for making but I’ve just ordered halloumi on my online shop and when it arrived the date is Sept 2019!

[MotherWol]

Coming back to this thread to report back on the powdered milk experiment! I've been making yogurt with dried milk - I used Nestle Nido full fat milk powder, which is about £3.75 for a 400g tin; I think skimmed milk powder is cheaper, but I like full fat dairy products. 1 can makes about 13 cups of milk, and 2 cups milk yields 1.5 cups yogurt and 0.5c whey, which I mix into bread/pizza dough.

I've found you do need to treat the reconstituted milk in the same way as if you were making yogurt with fresh milk - i.e. heat it to 82 degrees then let it cool to around 46, mix it with a fresh yogurt starter, then transfer it to a thermos/Easiyo container to let it set overnight. Theoretically you shouldn't need to heat it because there's not the same need to kill off any bugs with dried milk as there is with fresh, but when I tried just heating it to 46 it didn't set.

You do need a small amount of live yogurt as a starter, as the Easiyo sachets didn't seem to work as a dried starter, as well as drinking water both to reconstitute and to boil to warm your thermos. I'm really pleased with the Easiyo kit on the whole, as you can make yogurt completely from scratch in it, you don't need to use the sachets unless you want to, although they're a good fallback to stash in the cupboard.

At current prices, both fresh milk and yogurt are very cheap, so I don't think this is a cost-saving solution, but we don't know how prices or availability may change in the future, so I'm glad to have this as an option if it becomes necessary. It also means less plastic going in the recycling bin, which is cool.

Hope this helps @BelliniSurge!

[bellinisurge]

Thank you @MotherWol . Excellent experiment.

[bellinisurge]

Yes, I think so. I have frozen cheese before now.

[Snugglepumpkin]

I have frozen butter, it's supposed to be fine for 6 months, but to be honest I treat my freezer like a time machine so I've had it in there longer than that & it seems okay.


For anyone interested, I got 3 x 900g jars of Nido powdered milk delivered today (got it off Amazon subscribe & save with a 15% discount so cost me £19.12 for all 3, so about £6.37 each)
None of my local supermarkets seem to sell it, so if anyone knows a better price online please give me a heads up.

Best before date is june 2020.

[SAK1976]

I have stumbled upon this post, what on earth is this about lol 

[bellinisurge]

Hi @SAK1976 , this is in the Prepper topic where we look at alternatives to The Shop and The Grid as part of how we approach things. As well as other things that we discuss. The op had a query about dairy and this thread is about that.

[user1981287]

Is the nido powdered milk better than the other stuff in the supermarkets?

[MotherWol]

Nido milk is full fat, most supermarket dried milk is skimmed, so it might make a more watery/less creamy tasting yogurt. If you can only find dried skimmed milk I'd still give it a go though. My supermarket seems to store the Nido in the 'world foods' aisle and Marvel/own brand next to the UHT and soya milk.

[Whatthefoxgoingon]

Worth looking at your local ethnic stores for Nido milk. They are more likely to have it than supermarkets.

[lessonsintightropes]

My PIL are buying me a cheesemaker for Xmas with starters for many European cheeses like halloumi, ricotta, marscapone and mozzarella. I suspect all will be wide of the mark but even here in London I expect we'll be able to source milk, and this sounds like a reasonable plan.

[Huggybear16]

Can I ask anyone still on this thread about freezing cheese?

I'm not a great cook at all, and really don't have much interest in making cheese, but it's the one thing we use a lot of and would like to store.

What's the best way to store cheddar for future use? Do I just throw it in the freezer as bought or should I be packaging it differently? Leave it whole, grate it or cut it up? How long past it's use by date would it be good for in the freezer?

Lots of conflicting info online, so would like to hear from those who have tried it.

[bellinisurge]

I'm a sling it in the freezer kind of person however it comes. My instinct is keep it as a block because I have frozen fresh .Parmesan like that .