~ WIC TRICK #2 ~

Summertime WIC trick! Remember in Anchorman with Will Ferrell when he's homeless and bearded and down on his luck, and he swaggers down the street in beautiful close-to-downtown San Diago and proceeds to pound milk right out of the carton, and then he says, "Ugh! It's so HOT!!! Milk was a bad choice....!" Well, when WIC gives you milk, they REALLY give you milk. It's often so much that I, a) don't have room for it all in my fridge, 2) can't always use it all before it goes bad, and d) get grossed out watching my little ones guzzle bottle after bottle of it, especially in hot summer months.

A few ideas to cool it down, re purpose it, what have you, to make better use of the abundance of this dairy product:

MEXICAN PUDDING! Yeah! Unlike Jell-o, most Mexican puddings, called gelatina on the package, are made with milk, not water. The flavors are outrageous. They have Nuez (walnut) Fresa (strawberry) Vainilla (take a guess) Pistachio...! After you boil the milk to combine with the flavors, the pudding sets up in the fridge, so it's a cool little guilty pleasure for you and your wee ones. I've seen them carried in Winco, Food 4 Less, some Stater Bros, and of course any respectable Mexican market like Vallartas or Cardenas. The sugar content might outweigh the calcium benefits, but you don't have to do it every day. :) 

MILKSHAKES! Some crushed ice, some milk, some fresh peaches, or strawberries, or cocoa mix, instant chai for the brave (caffeine + toddler = scary!!!) or nuts in the blender --- yum. My parents used to make me "ponche" of milk, banana, a little cinnamon and vanilla, all blended up. If I hadn't been such an OCD little texture freak, it would have been great. The flavor was and is amazing. Hard for me to drink as a little person, though, so this might be something you try on the kids, but be ready to drink it yourself if they are particular people like I was. 

ICE CREAM! Ice cream makers seem to be making a come back, and the recipes are endless. The old fashioned and traditional (chocolate, vanilla, strawberry) to the avant garde (lavender lemon cheesecake) --- but I know of a way or two to fake it if you don't have the machine, and kiddos generally like participating in the process! You can take that milkshake you so expertly blended before, and simply pour into ice cube trays with toothpicks, or you can get a little more involved. Grab a large empty coffee can with a lid and a smaller can that fits inside with a lid. Your favorite milk-based ice cream recipe goes into the smaller can (pre-freeze for a bit, just to keep the process from totally sucking your will to live) and regular crushed ice and rock salt get packed around that SEALED can within the larger one. Put the lid on that one, and sitting several feet apart on the ground, facing each other, mommy and babe take turns rolling the can back and forth for, oh, hours and hours (not really. most recipes will tell you how long. Maybe 20 minutes in actuality) and before you turn 100, you have a gourmet ho-made confection and will have worked off more than enough calories making it to deserve polishing off the whole thing yourself, if you want to. We did this once in the 5th or 6th grade and it was awesome. Only one pair of kids' inner cans ruptured, giving them salty milk n cookies, but they were extremely violent children, and were like, kicking the cans back and forth, not rolling them as we were supposed to do. 

So go to it, mommy-people! Do a body good and treat your creatures to something new! :)