Dairy - Milk, Yoghurt & Butter

MILK
So as I mentioned in my last post, I've changed our milk so that it's supplied by our local

Find your local milkman

milkman (our neighbour) and there is something ridiculously lovely about popping to the front door, early in the morning, to get in milk bottles.  Thankfully Dairy Crest do organic milk, and it's just a matter now of working out how many bottles to get on Tues/Thurs/Sat...but think we're getting there.  (And being able to change the order until 9pm the night before is definitely helpful.)  The glass bottles go back to be reused, and I'm collecting the foil tops to go to St Mary's that apparently collect it and make some money out of it.

Time wise: quicker as no trips to the supermarket on the bike twice a week

Cost wise: more expensive, 93p per pint vs ASDA at 37.5p (ouch!)

YOGHURT

I use a yoghurt maker from Lakelands

I've also managed to hunt my yoghurt maker out of the back of the cupboard.  I think I got it pre-kids and simply didn't get through enough yoghurt to make it worthwhile.  I'd forgotten just how simple it is to make.  You basically stick 2 tablespoons of fresh yoghurt in, with 900ml of milk, and 8 hours later you have a big pot of yoghurt.  So far I've made two batches....one with a carton of UHT that was at the back of the cupboard (apparently makes the best yoghurt) and one with milk from the milkman.  The challenge with the UHT milk is that I think it's only available in unrecyclable cartons, so no use to me.  However, the biggest challenge is convincing the kids, but I'm hoping with a variety of flavour experiments over the coming weeks, that they'll forget what the shop bought yeo valley yoghurt tasted like, and learn to love mine.

Time wise: if you don't use UHT milk, you need to boil it first, 

so about 10 mins, then leave it to do it's own thing for 8 hours.

Cost wise: £1.40 for the 900ml organic milk from the milkman, to make 600g 

Yeo Valley used to cost me £1 for 450g 

(so 1p more expensive per 100g, although with no flavours added) 

MARGARINE/BUTTER

So currently we buy a variety of margarines (depending what's on offer) for our sandwiches etc, and I also have butter in the house, but mainly for baking.  The latest food advice seems to be to use butter instead of marg, so I had been thinking of changing to it.  However, it seems impossible to buy either without it being in plastic, or plastic covered paper.  So I'm considering an attempt at making butter myself, although a quick google says you need to use cream to make it, and I'm not sure I can source that in glass (more research!), and making cream (I'll become the milkman's best customer) seems to take a lot of time. Watch this space, and if you have any experience or tips, please do share them.  (Or equally know of anywhere that sells organic butter in paper or foil.)
Found this useful article as a starting point: http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2010/feb/24/how-to-make-butter