I miss home terribly. It has been three years since I was in Zimbabwe. I have been thinking of all the different food that I will eat when I eventually get home. Some foods you can get substitutes of, but with the things I miss the most there are no substitutes like Zimbabwean indigenous fruits. Sometimes I just list the things I want to eat when I get home and all the different ways I will experiment with the food.

Like most families in Zimbabwe, we used to have sadza for dinner on every most nights with beef stew. I really do not like beef so my option was to have sour milk with my sadza. My mother did not mind because sour milk is affordable. This really is the only way most people ever use sour milk, so I made a list of all the things you can use sour milk for. Remember to only use raw sour milk, if your milk was pasteurised you need to throw it away if it becomes sour.

Sour milk uses:

Just drink it

Just pour yourself a glass and drink the sour milk. If it is too sour, you can swirl some honey in it too.

Eat with Sadza

Use as an accompaniment to sadza. I especially love to eat sadza rezviyo (finger millet) nemhunga(sorghum) with milk, it just tastes so much better than with maize.

Eat with Rice

Take plain boiled rice and add sour milk. Add some honey or sugar to your tastes and some fruit and you have a dessert. I usually do this with leftover rice in the morning.

Marinate chicken

You can use sour milk to marinate your chicken overnight. The meat becomes tenderised and moist. Remember to add herbs and spices to your marinate. You can grill, bake or deep fry the chicken.

Bake with it

Use sour milk as a substitute for buttermilk. Use it in baking scones, American biscuits, sweet bread and cakes.

Make scrambled eggs

Add a little sour milk to your eggs, beat together and scramble the eggs.

Add to soups

Instead of using cream in your soups try adding sour milk.

Use as smoothie base

All smoothies need a base, use your sour milk as the base instead of milk.

Popsicles

Freeze smoothies in popsicle moulds to make popsicles.

Use as hair deep conditioner

Add some honey to the sour milk and use the mixture to deep condition your hair.

Face mask

Smear the milk all over your face and leave for about 5 minutes. Wash it off with water. Before using milk on your face do a patch test to see if you will react.

Parfait

Make a parfait with fruit and granola.

Veggie Dip

Add black pepper, salt and Worcestershire sauce to make a dip for veggies.

Salad dressing

Make sour milk ranch dressing by adding ranch seasoning to the milk.

Cheese

Make cottage cheese by straining sour milk through through cheesecloth.