Unwanted Milk - What to do. . . ?

As we unpacked the Instacart grocery order, we noticed the Instacart shopper left a half-gallon of 2% milk with my order.  We had not ordered milk.  I hope another customer is not missing their milk!  Instacart said we did not need to return it.  We think life is too short to leave out the fat, so now what can I do with low fat milk?

A quick google search suggested cottage cheese or ricotta.  That's something we have never made, even when we had lots of fresh farm milk, but we have the luxury of free time now that we did not have then.

The directions are pretty simple.

Put the milk into a heavy pan.  I used my All Clad pan with the helper handle (what a great invention that is!).

Heat the 2 quarts of milk to 190ºF.

Add 1/3 cup vinegar.  

Let it sit for 30 minutes.

It immediately begins separating into curds and whey.  I feel like Miss Muffet.

Strain into a cheesecloth lined colander.

Let it rest for 30 minutes, then squeeze if necessary.  

Chill it, then add heavy cream and salt.

Eat.

~ ! ~ ! ~ 

Next is what to do with the whey.  The cottage cheese was 2 cups, and there were 6 cups of whey.  We don't have pigs or chickens.  Once again, google to the rescue.

I found a recipe for bread.

I used:

• 400 g whey (2 cups)
• 600 g bread flour
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt

After the first rise I was hungry, so a pinched off a piece to make fry bread to eat while the rest of the dough was rising in the loaf pan.

It was delicious.  A great mid-afternoon snack!

I decided to shape the dough for a standard white-bread sandwich loaf.  I put it in my USA Pan loaf pan. (I do like this company!  I also have two of their muffin tins and one mini-muffin tin.  So far, nothing has stuck, and I do not grease the pans or use muffin papers.)

It has a fairly dense, heavy crumb.  It made delicious grilled cheese sandwiches.  

I have enough whey in the freezer for two more loaves!

Or I may try to find another recipe.

This bread was good, but we still like the challah recipe best.