Wizard Recipes

Milk and dairy products provide many of the key nutrients needed daily, particularly calcium. Milk and dairy products also supply high-quality protein. Because of its animal source, milk protein is complete - meaning it provides a sufficient amount of the nine essential amino acids.

Dairy products are also naturally rich in B vitamins and most of the minerals considered to be essential in the diet, including calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, zinc, iodine, and selenium. In addition, milk also contains several vitamins and minerals that have been added to meet the requirements of the Food and Drug Administration.

Low-fat and nonfat milk may be fortified with vitamin A because this fat-soluble vitamin is lost when the milk fat is removed. Vitamin D is added to all milk to help the body better use calcium.

Milk also is a good source of carbohydrates. With the exception of cheeses and butter, milk products are higher in carbohydrates than protein or fat. Milk’s carbohydrate is lactose, a sugar unique to milk that is actually two sugars (glucose and galactose) linked together.

Food scientists call this type of sugar a “disaccharide.” Lactose is not as sweet as other sugars. It helps the body absorb calcium and phosphorus and may even help in the growth of friendly bacteria needed in the intestines.

In addition, galactose, one of the sugars in lactose, is a vital part of brain and nerve tissue. It is released when the body digests lactose. Lactose is a bit of a paradox, however.

Although it has these beneficial properties, many people have difficulty digesting .

Despite all the nutrients in milk, the nutritional advantages of dairy products must be weighed against the potential health drawbacks of two key components in milk: sodium and fat.

Whole milk, cream, and cheeses contain substantial amounts of fat, especially saturated fat. These fats add calories and have been tied to higher cholesterol levels and cardiovascular disease. However, it is important to note that low-fat and nonfat milk varieties are available and are significantly lower in fat than whole milk.

In addition, depending on how much is consumed, milk or products made from milk may be a major source of sodium - a special concern for anyone following a low-sodium diet.

As many as 50 million Americans are estimated to have lactose intolerance - an inability to adequately digest ordinary amounts of dairy products such as milk and ice cream.

Worldwide, nearly 70 percent of the adult population is thought to be lactose intolerant, and the condition is very common among American Indians and those of Asian, African, Hispanic, and Mediterranean descent.

Lactose is the sugar that is naturally present in milk and milk products. It must be broken down by lactase (an enzyme found in the intestine) before the body can use it. If there is not enough lactase, undigested milk sugar remains in the intestine. Bacteria in the colon then ferment this sugar. Gas, cramping, and diarrhea can follow.

Most of us begin to lose intestinal lactase as we age. However, this occurs to varying degrees. Thus, people with lactase deficiency vary in their ability to comfortably digest milk and milk products.

As obvious as the symptoms of lactose intolerance may be, it is not easily diagnosed from the symptoms alone. Many other conditions, including stomach flu and irritable bowel syndrome, can cause similar symptoms.

See your physician to determine whether you are lactose intolerant. Measurement of the hydrogen in your breath after you have taken in lactose is a useful test because large amounts of hydrogen indicate that lactose is not being fully digested and that you are probably intolerant.

Persons with milk allergies should avoid milk, but those with lactose intolerance often do not need to follow a diet that is completely lactose-free. The following suggestions may help:

• Avoid eating or drinking large servings of dairy products at one time. (Several smaller servings over the course of a few hours are much easier to digest.)
• Drink milk or eat dairy products with a meal.
• Choose hard or aged cheeses, such as Swiss or cheddar, over fresh varieties. Hard cheeses have smaller amounts of lactose and are more likely to be tolerated.
• Take lactase tablets or drops, such as Lactaid or Dairy Ease. These types of products contain the enzyme that breaks down lactose, reducing the amount that your body must digest on its own.

For help with meal planning, you may want to see a registered dietitian.

Milk has a wide variety of uses and thus is one of the most basic items found in kitchens worldwide. It is consumed as a beverage, poured on cereals, and used in many different ways in cooking.

In response to consumers with different nutritional demands, modern food science has made many different types of fluid milk available. Although milk can be less inviting to people who are concerned with their weight because of its high fat content, some types of milk contain no fat at all.

Whole milk - Containing 3 1/2 percent milk fat, this type of milk is often simply labeled “milk” or “vitamin D milk” if that particular vitamin has been added. Of all types of milk, whole milk is among the highest in fat and calories. One cup has 150 calories and approximately 8 grams of fat.

Reduced-fat milk - Often referred to as two percent, this type of milk has had some milk fat removed from it. Two percent reflects the amount of fat in the milk by weight. It does not refer to the percentage of calories from fat. One cup of 2 percent milk has 130 calories and 5 grams of fat.

Low-fat milk - Also known as 1 percent milk, this type of milk contains about 100 calories and 2.6 grams of fat in 1 cup.

Nonfat or skim milk - Skim milk, which contains less than 0.5 percent milk fat, is now more often labeled nonfat milk. It contains the same amount of nutrients, such as calcium, as its higher fat counterparts, but it has no fat and just 90 calories.

Buttermilk - Buttermilk was once the residue left from churning butter, but today’s version is made from adding a lactic acid culture to milk. The result is far less rich than the original “natural” buttermilk, but it still retains the thick texture and acidic tang of old.

Some manufacturers add flecks of butter for an authentic look or stabilizers to prevent separation. Because of its name, buttermilk may sound high in fat. Yet, in most instances it is not.

Buttermilk derives its fat content from the milk used to make it, and in the United States low-fat or nonfat milk is used most often. Calories and fat in buttermilk depend on what type of milk was used to make it. Check the label for fat content.

Lactose-reduced and lactose-free milk - These products are tailored to people who have trouble digesting lactose, a sugar found in milk. An enzyme called lactase is added during the processing of this milk.

The result is that lactose in the milk is reduced by at least 70 percent (lactosereduced) or up to 99.9 percent (lactose-free). Calories and fat in lactose-reduced and lactose-free milk depend on what type of milk was cultured.

Ultrapasteurized milk (UHT) - This milk has been popular in Europe for many years, but it has only recently appeared in U.S. supermarkets. The “ultra-heat treatment” (UHT) sterilizes milk by quickly heating it, sometimes as high as 300 degrees Fahrenheit, and then quickly cooling it before packaging it in vacuum-packed, aseptic containers.

UHT milk can be stored for 2 to 3 months without refrigeration, until opened. Once opened, UHT milk should be refrigerated and quickly consumed. It can spoil, but unlike other milk, it does not curdle as a warning sign of spoilage.

The ultra-heat process makes the milk taste slightly scalded, but it is thought that the treatment does not substantially affect the nutrient value. The amount of fat and calories in UHT milk depends on the type of milk from which it was made.

Flavored milk - Flavorings, sugar, or other sweeteners are added to fluid milk. Although some milk is flavored with strawberry, vanilla, and even peanut butter flavorings, chocolate is used most commonly.

Flavored milks are higher in calories than their unflavored counterparts. Calories and fat in flavored milk range from 150 calories and no fat for 1 cup of chocolate milk made from skim milk to more than 210 calories and 8 grams of fat for 1 cup of whole chocolate milk.

When purchasing flavored milks, look for products that are made from skim or reduced-fat milk. Avoid those labeled “premium.” They often are made from whole milk, which is high in fat.

Preparation Tips

It is easy to overcook milk when heating it. When milk is heated to a temperature that is too high, its proteins clump together and curds appear in the milk. When heating milk, always use low heat and stir frequently.

Using a double boiler when heating milk also helps prevent overheating. Anyone who has ever had homemade hot cocoa knows that heated milk can develop a “skin” (a thickened surface). An easy way to prevent this is to mix a little cornstarch into the milk before heating it.

Serving Suggestions

Nonfat milk has the least amount of fat and calories but still provides all of milk’s nutrients. Many people prefer its lighter texture and taste to the heaviness of whole milk. Even the staunchest fan of whole milk can easily be converted to using this healthier alternative. Make the change gradually.

Start by mixing equal parts of whole milk with 2 percent milk. Then, in stepwise progression, use just 2 percent, next a combination of 2 percent and 1 percent, then just 1 percent, then a combination of 1 percent and skim milk, and eventually only skim milk.

If you dislike skim milk, 1 percent or 2 percent milk is a reasonable option, especially if it keeps you drinking milk. Buttermilk can be substituted for cream in many recipes: a half cup of buttermilk has 1 gram of fat, but the same serving of light cream has 31 grams.

Whenever possible, lower the amount of fat in a recipe by substituting a lowerfat milk. A cream soup made with low-fat milk is just as rich tasting, especially if you thicken the soup with a bit of flour. A cup of cocoa made with skim milk provides more nutrients and fewer calories than the average chocolate dessert, and it is just as effective for satisfying a sweet tooth.

The more water a dairy product contains, the more perishable it is. The more aged and processed the cheese is, the better it keeps. Bacteria need high moisture to thrive and they spoil milk, cream and high-moisture cheeses with pleasure and expediency.

As we already know, milk curdles when we add acidic foods, but it also curdles naturally without your help if you give it time. Lactic acid-forming bacteria build up the acidity slowly if the milk is cold, but they multiply fast, complete the job and curdle the milk within hours at warm room temperatures.

Milk freezes well. If you have too much milk on hand, pour it in plastic containers, self sealing bags or store it in its original carton in the freezer. It keeps well for 2 to 3 months and tastes fresh and remains lump free when defrosted.

Butter is moderately perishable, but it is notorious for picking up odors from other things around it. Never store it in the refrigerator uncovered even for short-term storage.

What actually makes butter spoil is oxidation, caused by exposure to both light and air which turns it rancid.Wrapping it tightly in foil instead of the waxed paper it comes in almost doubles its shelflife. You may have noticed that better-quality butters are often foil-wrapped.

Refrigerated unsalted butter has a shelflife of a few weeks. Butter freezes well and it stays good for several months in the freezer. Salted butter lasts at least three times longer in both the refrigerator and freezer without deterioration. When defrosted, you cannot tell the difference in flavor or texture.

Freezing, on the other hand, separates cream. It breaks down the emulsion, so the fat separates from the water. But if you freeze it very fast, the emulsion stays intact. If you have extra cream that you want to freeze, take a clean baking sheet, chill it thoroughly in the freezer and pour a thin layer of cream on it. Freeze it, then scrape the frozen cream into a plastic container or plastic bag. After defrosting you can even try to use this cream for your coffee.

Whipped cream freezes very well. Put dollops of whipped cream on a sheet of waxed paper laid on a baking sheet and freeze them for an hour. Then collect these individually quickfrozen dollops in a plastic bag to store in the freezer. You can use them as freshly whipped cream after defrosting. Freezing preserves its structure virtually intact.

High-moisture cheeses keep for several weeks, lower-moisture hard cheeses at least twice as long, even several months when you store them properly. The less you touch the cheese, the fewer bacteria you transfer to its surface, and the longer the shelflife.

Handle freshly-opened cheese only with clean hands. Wrapping cheese well to eliminate both microorganisms and oxidation extends its shelflife, too.

When surface molds attack stored cheese, don’t throw the whole piece out. They are not harmful, just disgusting looking and tasting. Scrape or cut off a thin layer, and the cheese beneath it is still perfectly good to eat. But once a piece of cheese is heavily coated with mold, scraping is not enough. The moldy flavor may have permeated the entire chunk.

Dry, low-moisture, well-aged cheeses, such as romano and parmesan are stable even without refrigeration. But if you are planning to store them for several months, you should keep even these cheeses chilled to reduce the rate of oxidation, thus rancidity.

Ripe, well-aged cheeses continue aging even in storage, though slowly at refrigerator temperatures. Storing them too long allows them to overripen, their flavor gets unbalanced and too intense. Often these cheeses, like brie, come in a wrapping something like waxed paper, but if you look closely, there are tiny holes all over the wrapping (called microperforated packaging).

These tiny holes let the cheese breath while ripening. Aging produces excess moisture that you want to release to prevent spoilage. Don’t rewrap these aged cheeses in plastic wrap. Use the original wrapper or kitchen waxed paper.

Don’t freeze cheese if you don’t have to. Freezing doesn’t affect flavor, but you destroy its texture, and it turns mushy after thawing. It is perfectly fine in any cooked dish, since it still blends well with other ingredients.

If you need to freeze excess cheese or just want to have some for cooking in the freezer, grate it first then store in labeled freezer bags. That way you can use small amounts at a time when you need it.

All of the 60-odd proteins in milk fall into two categories. In one group they precipitate either in acid or on heat, and in the other they remain in solution. This is an important distinction in the kitchen that asks for some clarification.

Milk and acid

In its natural state, milk is very slightly acid (pH 6.5). One protein, casein, which makes up 80 percent of all milk proteins, precipitates in mild acid conditions but natural acidity is not acid enough.

When milk starts getting old, bacteria produce lactic acid, the milk becomes mildly acidic (turns sour), and casein precipitates as curds. If you let the milk sit longer, with more lactic acid it becomes more acidic, and another group, whey proteins, also precipitate, and even more curds develop.

If you add anything quite sour like citrus juice, vinegar or tart fruits, the milk curdles instantly as the casein precipitates. Sometimes we do this deliberately, making custards with fruit juices or fruits, for example, but the soft curds will disperse when slowly heated in the oven, and add firmness to the custard. Most of the time, you don’t want milk to curdle.

To prevent this, mix starch (in the form of flour, cornstarch, tapioca) with the acid ingredient. Starch keeps the casein in suspension, and prevents curds from forming.

Milk and heat

A common problem when heating milk is how easily it scorches on the bottom of the pan. The thinner the pan and the higher the heat, the more scorch you have to scrub off. What happens is that the heat precipitates heavy proteins in the milk that sink to the bottom, and burn on the hot surface of the pan.

What can you do? Heating the milk in a double boiler works, because there’s no direct contact with the hot metal surface of the outer pan, but it takes forever. Constant stirring keeps the proteins from settling on the bottom, but this also takes time and attention. Try heating milk at a bare medium heat while occasionally stirring. This at least minimizes the pot scrubbing afterwards.

The other common problem with heating milk happens on top. A skin forms on the surface of the milk as it heats, and if you are not watching it carefully, the milk boils over. The two events, bottom scorching and top skin, are connected. Heat precipitates proteins and calcium.

The heavy casein sinks to the bottom while the light proteins and calcium precipitates rise to the top and form the skin. The skin in turn creates a tight seal over the upper surface of the milk all the way to the sides of the cooking pot. The air bubbles that form below the skin in the liquid cannot escape, so they accumulate as steam, which lifts the skin up like a hot-air balloon.

The next thing you smell is the erupting milk pouring down the outside of the pot and onto the burner. When you see the skin forming over the surface, stir it back in the milk to prevent it from boiling over. Don’t skim it off, or you lose valuable nutrients.

You can buy a ceramic disk (size of a tuna can and thickness of a finger) that sits on the bottom to prevent boil-overs. It has a clever design, that allows air bubbles to collect below the disk and are released in big pockets instead of many tiny bubbles. These large bubbles stir the milk enough to keep the skin from forming. This stirring action also helps with the bottom scorching problem.

Scalding milk

Why do some recipes call for scalded milk before using it in baking? You see these particularly in older cookbooks. This was an essential step before pasteurization to deactivate enzymes in the milk that interfered with the action of other ingredients, like yeast.

Scalding is no longer necessary because pasteurization deactivates the offending enzymes. In some recipes it is helpful to warm the milk to speed a process, such as activating yeast, or starting with warm liquid in custards and puddings. But if you need to scald milk, heat it to near boiling.

Tiny bubbles on the surface are your trigger. If you actually boil the milk, the flavor becomes insipid. (Note, however, that heating milk to make yogurt has a different purpose. Heating here is to destroy all competing microorganisms before adding the bugs that culture the milk.)

Pasteurizing milk has been an industry-wide standard in the U.S. since the 1940s. Pasteurized milk offers many advantages, even though the full, rich, sturdy flavor of fresh raw milk suffers. It is against the law in almost all of the U.S. to sell raw milk or transport it across state lines.

The milk producers must pasteurize, ultra-pasteurize or ultra-high-temperature process milk before they sell it. Raw milk is high in bacteria that reduce its useable shelflife to half or a third compared to pasteurized milk. Even if it is free of bacteria, the active enzymes in raw milk would rapidly spoil it and produce sharp off flavors.

To pasteurize milk, the processor heats it slowly without boiling (boiled milk develops an unnatural cooked flavor). It takes 15 seconds to pasteurize milk at 160°F (72°C), 30 minutes at 144°F (63°C). Pasteurization destroys all pathogenic bacteria, yeasts and molds. But it destroys only 95 to 99 percent of nonpathogenic bacteria, so it is not as sterile as when it left the cow’s udder.

In practice that means the bacteria count is harmlessly low, but if the kids leave the carton out on the kitchen counter overnight, those few bacteria grow into a real problem. Pasteurization also deactivates those milk enzymes that cause rapid spoiling.

Homogenization is another process all U.S. milk undergoes to keep the tiny fat particles from congregating at the surface (they are the lightest, so slowly they rise), that would turn into heavy cream. The homogenizing process is simple. The processor pumps the milk through tiny orifices under high pressure to reduce the size of the fat globule from very small to microscopic (less than 2 millimicrons). This makes it physically impossible for them to clump together and rise to the surface.

A relatively new process allows you to store milk without refrigerating it. In ultrapasteurization, they flash-heat milk to 280°F (139°C) for 2 to 4 seconds. Ultrahigh-temperature (UHT) processing is the same, but the processor also packages the milk in sterilized, sealed paper cartons for a shelflife of many months without refrigeration. It comes in handy for camping, for emergency supplies and for times when you are out of milk in the middle of a baking project.

In an experiment food scientists put a labeled carton of UHT milk on a shelf for long-term storage. They opened the carton 2½ years later and compared the flavor with one in a fresh carton. They found no detectable difference in flavor.

Milk has to be pasteurized before it is homogenized. If they homogenized raw milk, the tiny fat globules became easy target for the disabling enzymes, and the milk would turn sour in hours.

The dairy industry has also perfected milk in another form-powdered (dehydrated). That is what they do with the extra milk they cannot sell fresh. Powdered milk keeps well on the shelf for years. Much of it finds its way to developing countries that have a shortage of fresh milk, but it is popular with domestic food processors and commercial bakeries, too. Powdered milk is always non-fat because the fat would oxidize and turn rancid with storage.

You will be surprised to learn that dehydrated milk is not a modern invention. Nomads in the steppes of northern Asia made sun-dried milk at least 1500 years ago. Their diet was predominantly dairy, but milk was both too bulky and too perishable to transport on horseback, so they dried it in the sun and carried the powder in leather pouches. At meal-time they reconstituted it with fresh water from creeks or springs-they had instant milk.

In America, you can buy dairy products in grocery stores, delis, even gas stations, in all their many forms. All these choices break into two main categories:

¨ 1. Uncultured products-butter, cream, half-and-half and ice cream.

¨ 2. Cultured products-yogurt, frozen yogurt, sour cream, buttermilk and cheese.

What would happen if we begin to consider food is less a thing and more a relationship? In nature, things have always been like this: eating meant in fact interacting whit species in the systems that we call food chains or tropic networks, which include everything up to the soils. Species co-evolved with the other species that eat them and very often, among them develops a relationship of interdependence: I’ll feed you, if you spread my genes.

Following an evolutionary process of mutual adaptation, the apple or the pumpkin turns into a nutritious and delicious food product for certain animals. Over time and through processes of trial and failure, the plant becomes tastier (and often more visible) to answer the needs and desires of the animal, and so that the animal can develop various digestive tools (eg, enzymes) needed to exploit the plant as good as possible.

Thus, at first, the cow milk was not a nutritious product for people: in fact, it even harms them that until the people who lived around cows developed in adulthood the ability to digest milk. The gene responsible for producing lactase, the enzyme that make the digestion of milk possible, was disabled by humans shortly after medical ablation, but now five thousand years, people have suffered from a mutation where the gene which remains active throughout life, the mutation that quickly spread through a population of pastors in north-central Europe. Why? Because people which suffered this mutation have access to a new extreme nutritious food source and therefore they could multiply more easily than those who had not undergone the mutation that we are talking about. This adaptation was good for those who consume milk but also for cows that have multiplied and expanded their habitat (and have improved their health status) all because of this new symbiotic relationships.

Among other things, health status is determined by the type of relationships within a food chain extreme varied relation in the human case which is an omnivorous. So, when a link from the food chain health is affected, this can be passed on to all other living creatures that make up that food chain. If the soil is sick or suffering from certain deficiencies so will be the gras growing on it and the cows grazing grass and the people who drink their milk. This is what Weston Price and Sir Howard was thinking when they were trying to establish a connection between these apparent distant spheres: soil and human health. We can not separate our own health from the entire health chain.

We start drinking milk from the first day of our life ’till our last, right? And that’s great, because milk is the only complete nutrient: it contains all 3 main nutriments categories (proteins, glucids/carbohydrates and lipids), along with vitamins (A,D,E and B group) and minerals (Calcium, Phosphor, Zinc and Iron)

Advantages:

-Through its high Calcium content it prevents rickets. 1 liter milk per day offers the Calcium needed for perfect bone solidity and development.

-Helps prevent cancer (colon cancer) due to Omega 6 content. Studies have shown a 50 % decrease in cancer incidence on dairy consumers

-Milk contains high quality proteins with essential amino acids which assure best development of tissues and whole organism

-prevents and treats high blood pressure due to high Calcium content

-cheese prevents cavity problems by increasing saliva Ph.

-Calcium from dairies burns fat!

-cheeses contain triptophan, precursory of serotonin, which gives us the good mood we desire so much

A coffee is just a coffee, right? … But then why so many kinds of coffee? Just leave your coffee machine at peace for a couple of days and try these traditional recipes of coffee,  just to start your day better!!!

1) COFFEE WITH MILK

4 tbsps  coffee

3 cups milk

3 tbsps sugar

In a pot, boil the milk with the sugar. Add the coffee and leave it to cool a little bit. Serve with cocoa powder on top.

2)COCOA COFFEE

3 tbsps cocoa powder

3 tbsps powdered sugar

3 cups milk

3 cups  coffee (already made, concentrated)

100 g whipped cream

a pinch of salt

Boil the milk. In a bowl, mix well the sugar and the cacao powder, and add bit by bit the hot milk, stirring carefully. Continue until all the milk is incorporated, add a pinch of salt and start boiling the mixture at a small flame. After 10 minutes remove the pot from the fire and whip it well until it has a foam texture. Add the hot concentrated coffee, stir well, and serve in big cups with whipped cream on top.

3) MOCCA COFFEE WITH MILK

3 cups milk

3 tbsps coffee

3 tsps grated chocolate

4,5, tsps sugar

Prepare 3 cups of very strong coffee. While it is still hot, mix it well with 3 cups of the grated chocolate melted in hot milk. Add sugar to taste. Serve hot.

4) CHOCOLATE COFFEE

150 g chocolate

1 cup coffee (already made, very strong)

3 cups milk

100 g whipped cream

sugar to taste

Melt the chocolate in the microwave until it becomes creamy. Add it to the hot coffee, stirr well, and then add the milk. Add sugar to taste and serve it  hot with whipped cream on top, and a chocolate chip cookie.

5) COFFEE CREAM

500 ml milk

150 g sugar

2 cups of coffee (already made, very strong)

4,5, tbsps cream

Boil the milk with the sugar, and when it reaches the boiling point, add the cream, whipping it well, add the coffee and serve it.