Raw milk and cookies

Yesterday I woke up and had two kids. Today I woke up and have FOUR! We are officially foster parents to a 3 year old little charmer with the longest lashes in world (why is it always the boys!!!) and his two year old precious little heart melting sister. We are all in love with these two. How could we not be! We have been so amazed at God's perfect and comical timing in all of this. His plan is super cool and I'm humbled to be a part of it.

Okay. So now that I have confirmed your suspicions that I am crazy lets talk about how awesome raw milk is! I shared with you all the pros and cons in my last post. This post isn't so much about what I have read or heard but about our own actual experience with going to a dairy farm all for an amazingly wonderful gallon of creamy goodness.

I love my job because a big part of it is research. And in doing research I get to try and experience different things. I knew I was going to need to post on why dairy isn't officially "paleo approved" so I decided I would go straight to the source...a dairy farm. I wanted to see, smell, taste this raw milk that everyone has been buzzing about.

Levi took a Friday off and after a morning session at CrossFit we headed to Garg Farms. Garg Farms? Never heard of it? Well that is because it is in a land far far away. According to Google Maps it is one hour and four minutes from our house. Levi somehow managed to turn that one hour and four minutes in two and a half hours. We got lost. Really lost. We drove back and forth down the same road three times! But we made it...just barely. Thank goodness there was a gas station because after all that driving we were running scary low.

We turn into the farm gates and follow the little road all the way to this one building in the middle of all of this land. It was weird. Thank goodness there was a sign advertising RAW MILK or we might have turned right back around. Nah, that's not true. After that drive I was getting some raw milk if it meant I was going to hunt down a cow and milk that thing myself! Fortunately I did not have to get anywhere near an utter. We stepped inside the lone building and was greeted by the owner, Rakesh Garg and his one refrigerator and what I'm assuming was a child's cash register. My first opinion was a little harsh. But then we got to talking with Rakesh and he was such a delight! He was so intelligent and knowledgeable on all things milk...obviously that is important for his business but I was impressed nonetheless. He directed us to his one refrigerator and explained to us all about the process of pasteurization and homogenization.

The fridge was full of gallons of milk. Each one had a thick cream at the top. Some of the gallons had cream taking up almost half the gallon. Rakesh showed us that all you have to do is gently turn the gallon jug upside down a few time to get it all blended. He said that if he shook it too much it would turn to butter very easily. Seriously Addie's and my eyes lit up at the idea of butter. We both have been known to eat little pats of butter all by themselves. I know that is gross to the rest of you but Addie and I get it.

Rakesh explained that because it is raw it will not last very long. We basically needed to drink the whole thing in a week. We haven't been drinking any milk at all and the idea of finishing off an entire gallon in one week seemed like a lot. So in the end we drove two and a half miles for ONE gallon of milk.

BUT IT WAS SOOOOOO WORTH IT!!!

After we got home I wouldn't let anyone try it. I wanted to get our reactions on camera, which I did but I backed up into the corner of my opened cabinet door while I was filming the kids and it really hurt so we had to cut and never did a take-2.

I made the most heavenly paleo cookies for us to eat with our raw milk tasting. You are going to seriously want to make these. You know those girl scout cookies called Samoas? Well these were a copycat version but even better. And I can prove it because my daddy who is also a paleo convert cheated the other day because he had ordered several boxes of Girl Scout cookies. Being the very wise man that he is, he decided he was going to get all his cheating done in one day so he ate every cookie from every box in ONE SINGLE DAY. He paid for it the next day and then again a few days after that when I told on him. But he ate one of my cookies and said it was better than the real thing!

 My Addie girl is the best little helper in the kitchen. She can crack an egg better than Levi. I really hope you all bring your babies into the kitchen with you when cooking. There is just so much you can impart and great lessons to be learned during that time and it should be treasured.

 My hand looks kind of alien clawish. Don't be concerned. It looks normal in real life.

This was our finished product of our little evening treat. Levi got out the ugly plastic super hero cups and some paper towels but then I made him requested that he get out the pretty cups and a glass plate all for the sake of this picture for the blog. Seriously, those glasses only come out like twice a year which is sad because they really aren't that fancy. We are usually fighting over the Wonder Woman plastic cup which is way cooler and doesn't get those water spots or at least you can't see them.

Before taking a bite of the cookies I had everyone take a drink of the raw milk while I filmed and injured myself. Both kids made extra loud and dramatic yummy noises for the camera so I wasn't sure if it was all an act for the sake of someday being seen by a movie producer or if this raw milk was really just that fantastic. So I picked up that not so fancy fancy glass and drank what I can only describe as pure heaven. Okay, maybe I'm talking this up a little too much but truly my first thought was that it was like drinking melted ice cream. I know this because I am not ashamed to to tilt my bowl of almost finished ice cream over my head to drink the tiny little morsel that remains.

No lie, we drank half of the gallon that night! Why didn't we buy two!!!! We rationed the remaining milk and made it last a few more days. Unfortunately we have not had an opportunity to take an afternoon to go buy another gallon of milk so we have just gone without. Sniff. So I was thinking...which can be scary sometimes...that if I started a co-op where we all took turns taking 2 hours and 8 minutes out of our day to buy a bunch of milk for bunch of people then maybe each one of us would only have to make the trip every few weeks instead of every week. So who's with me!?! I am actually really quite serious about this. We could use my shop as a central drop off location and store the milk in the "personal" fridge in the back and everyone in the co-op could just stop buy and pick up their raw milk once a week. Let me know if you are interested. Depending on my ability to load all my four kids into the car I may attempt a milk trip this week. If you want to try raw milk let me know and I'll pick up a gallon for you too and leave it up at the shop.

I'm not sure if one gallon of milk is enough to say whether or not it affected our health. I will say that none of us experienced anything noticeable. I was a bit concerned because Addie had been trying to get a cold and I was afraid the milk was going to make all my methods of keeping it at bay useless. But surprisingly enough she woke up the next morning with absolutely no drainage or runny nose. I'm not saying the milk made her better but it didn't make her worse.

Now that we have littler ones I will probably be ordering them a carrageenan free almond milk and keep the raw milk for the older ones. I do plan to discuss it with our pediatrician during the kiddos' checkups and I'm really interested to get her take on it.

Enjoy the recipe!

Some-More-Ahhhhhs by Paleo Indulgences
Ingredients:
For the cookie:
2 cups almond flour
1/2 cup unsweetened, finely shredded coconut
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 cup pure maple syrup
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
3 TBSP coconut oil, melted

For the Caramel: (I did not have the ingredients to make this part so I just dipped in chocolate and it turned out wonderful. I did order these ingredients later to keep on hand. If you want them I can order them for you through the shop.)
1 cup coconut crystals
1/4 cup coconut nectar
1/2 cup full-fat coconut milk
1/3 cup butter (optional)

For the tops:
1/2 cup unsweetened finely shredded coconut
1/2 chopped dark chocolate
1/oz unsweetened dark chocolate, chopped

Preheat to 350 degrees.

Place the dry ingredients in a medium bowl and whisk to combine.

Add wet ingredients to the dry and blend well with hand mixer. Cover and refrigerate dough for 15 minutes.

Scoop rounded tablespoons of dough onto parchment-lined cookie sheets. Place six cookies on each tray, as they will spread a little. (I did smaller cookies, about 3/4 TBSP scoops and they didn't spread out on their own. I had to press them down a little to make them flat.)

Bake 12-13 minutes, or until golden brown. (I baked for only 9 minutes but I've noticed my oven always needs less time.)

Lower oven to 300 degrees.

Meanwhile, make the caramel. Place the caramel ingredients in a medium saucepan and stir to combine.

Heat over medium high heat, boiling until mixture reaches 250 degrees on a candy thermometer. (about 20 minutes.)

Remove from heat and let cool.

Now make the toppings. Toast the coconut by spreading it out in a thin layer on a cookie sheet and baking in the 300 degrees oven for 10-15 minutes, stirring every few minutes.

Place chocolate in the top of a double broiler over simmering water and stir until melted.

Place a small spoonful of caramel on top of each cookie. (Or if you are like me and don't have the ingredients, dip cookie in chocolate.) Top with sprinkled of toasted coconut. Let cool.

Dip the bottom of each cookie in chocolate and let sit for 1 hour (or stick in the freezer for 2 minutes because you are so stinkin anxious to try one.)

Enjoy. We sure did.