Review: Mr. Milkman Delivery Service

Delivery time!

Folks, my dad's friend told me to check out Mr. Milkman and, when I did, I could not contain my excitement! 

You know all the local and organic agriculture in and around Central PA? Well, imagine being able to pick and choose from many purveyors with dozens of products and have them show up on your porch in a few days. This is your new reality, my friends. 

We tried Mr. Milkman and here are some of my thoughts:

1. At my request, they made a special delivery for our first order on Thursday, though our usual day will be Tuesday. Very accommodating.
2. Dan, one of the owners, pulled up in this adorable truck and personally loaded our goodies into a cooler waiting on the porch. He was very nice, apologizing for accidentally giving my peanut butter ice cream to another customer and making up for it with two containers (rocky road and chocolate covered strawberry).
3. My order: 2 dozen eggs from Nature's Yolk; pint of peanut butter ice cream, quart of buttermilk and quart of cream line whole milk from Trickling Springs Creamery; homemade 1-pound tub of FarmFriend natural butter; two pork chops (pastured); and one container of Pequea Valley Natural Yogurt (vanilla).
4. The delivery area is huge! You Philly people and suburbanites can participate, too.
5. If you have never had cream line milk, you are in for a rich treat. Timmy was not a fan, but Alex and I LOVED it in our morning coffee.
6. Soy-free eggs are available. A little pricey but an excellent option for the many people avoiding soy these days.
7. Other products: homemade sauerkraut, artisan cheese, honey, raw milk, gluten-free baked goods, Charles Chips and much more local meat.
8. The ice cream was decadent, super delicious, but the label indicated a lot more ingredients than I expected from homemade ice cream. 
9. The delivery fee of $4 is more than fair. The prices are in line with what you'd pay anywhere for products of the same quality that are probably less fresh.
10. All in all, we are ordering again. Love getting fresh milk in glass containers (no waste!) and knowing where our food is grown.

Try Mr. Milkman and come back to tell me what you thought, too!

Gluten-Free Cookies Can Be Delicious!

First, I should ask my babysitter to write this post instead of taking credit for it, but since she's away at camp this week, I will do the honor.

My older son is following a diet free of dairy, gluten and soy. This is my super active, super skinny, super tall son who loves sweets. Fortunately, he also loves fruits and vegetables and doesn't seem to mind this diet at all. In fact, he loves to tell me something has gluten in it just so he doesn't have to eat it. Clever little beast.

But I digress. My cookie monster will eat boxes of cookies a day if we let him. Not only is this a lot of empty calories (again, not entirely an issue; he eats a lot of healthy stuff, too), but the cost of these cookies is pretty notable. The best brand for his particular diet is Enjoy Life. They have a nice selection of soft and hard cookies that taste good but a box is anywhere from $4-$5. For 12 cookies.

That gets my value hackles up and also I really don't like to rely on processed treats. I mean, I buy granola bars and whatnot because I don't have time to make everything from scratch, but I don't like it. Enter the babysitter.

I buy gluten-free baking mix and dairy/soy/gluten-free chocolate chips and ask her to bake cookies with the boys. They love to be helpers. She texts me the first day: "What do I use instead of butter?" Legitimate question. I run through my pantry in my mind and come up with coconut oil, applesauce and ghee. To Google I go. I don't find anything conclusive but tell her to try an equal substitution with half coconut oil and half applesauce.

Those were the best chocolate chip cookies ever! Soft and flavorful. Not buttery but not bland and not coconutty either. Since that first batch, we have experimented with different mixes. It's hard to buy just the all-purpose gluten-free flour because then you have to find xanthum gum and baking powder/soda (I never remember which) and it's just more complicated than having a "baking mix." The Arrowhead Mills mix pictured here works well. Not inexpensive, though. We use the Enjoy Life chocolate chips, because they are soy-free and that's hard to find.

I'm going to suggest that she try the next batch with half or all ghee to see if that delicious butter flavor will be worth the cost increase. Speaking of which, if I add up the ingredients, it's probably close to breakeven with the store-bought cookies, maybe a little less. But they are homemade and there is less waste—and the boys get baking lessons to boot.