Saturday
September 7, 2024 
If you have been visiting your favorite farmers market this month, chances are you have seen representatives of Bucks County Dairy Promotion scooping out ice cream as a reminder that it’s time to celebrate the dairy products we enjoy every day.
June is National Dairy Month and has been since 1937 when it started out as National Milk Month. That’s when the government was trying to encourage milk consumption during the summertime when it was readily available. The celebration eventually expanded to include cow’s-milk sour cream, ice cream, yogurt and cheeses and became National Dairy Month.
History shows that humans have been choosing milk as a food source for at least 8,500 years. Milk is considered a major nutritional resource, containing protein, fat, sugar, potassium and calcium. Somewhere in our history a group of humans developed a tolerance for lactose, which allowed them to ingest animal milks. Today, some people still are not able to tolerate lactose, but the milk industry accommodates them with lactose-free milk products.
Americans love cheese, ice cream and yogurt but milk remains the most-consumed dairy product according to the USDA Economic Research Service. In 2022 it is estimated that Americans consumed 130 pounds of milk per person.
Adding more milk to your diet is easy; use milk instead of water in canned soups, milk instead of water in hot chocolate or oatmeal, and add one or two tablespoons of milk to scrambled eggs to make them fluffy.
If you have part of a container of sour cream left over, you could use it make this quick-and-easy meatball stroganoff from allrecipes.com:
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
½ onion, chopped
2 teaspoons minced garlic
1 (10.5-ounce) can condensed cream of mushroom soup
½ cup milk
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
15 frozen beef meatballs, or more to taste
8 ounces broad egg white noodles
¾ cup sour cream
salt and ground black pepper to taste
1. Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion and garlic; cook and stir until onion is almost soft, about 3 minutes.
2. Reduce heat to medium; stir in condensed soup, milk, and Worcestershire sauce. Add meatballs; reduce heat to low and simmer, covered, until tender, 35 to 40 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add noodles and cook, stirring occasionally, until tender yet firm to the bite, 10 to 12 minutes; drain.
4. Add sour cream, salt, and pepper to meatballs in sauce. Cook until flavors combine, about 2 minutes. Serve meatballs over noodles.
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