This has been the year of experimentation.  Our practice farm, we have been calling it.  We have taken on a “let’s see what happens?” attitude.  We were told a few times that this idea wouldn’t work.

Since we don’t have a milking goat (yet), we needed to try to preserve the milk.  We bought two gallons a week of delicious, frothy goat’s milk from our friend.  We drank a gallon a week in the form of chocolate milk; a vice that could not be resolved until a few weeks ago.  (Remember, we were vegan for years until recently.  We are making up for lost time.)  The other gallon we froze.

First we froze them by the half gallon in freezer bags and stacked them in the freezer.  Then I ran out of room for the freezer bags and resorted to freezing them in canning jars and storing them in the freezer door.  Make sure to leave a two inch head space so that the milk can freeze and don’t secure the lid until it has.  After the freezer was filled to capacity with everything I wanted in there, we stopped preserving the milk.  Just as Jill sold her goats.

Earlier in the season we had a sneak peek at what the milk would be like.  A half gallon froze solid in the back of the refrigerator.  When it defrosted, I poured myself a cup and choked down the little coagulated cream pieces that turned more into plastic than butter.  Uh oh, I thought.

But when it was time to pull the milk from the freezer, I simply popped a canning jar of frozen milk into the fridge and let it defrost.  Or, I start defrosting the freezer bags in water and when they are half defrosted (but still icy) I transfer them to a canning jar to store in the fridge.  I shake it well and pour it into Doug’s coffee.  We can use it to make cheese, in recipes, in hot drinks, ’tis fine.  Straight….well I need a milking goat.  And chocolate milk will have to be a seasonal treat!