When I visited the Nestle Culinary Center for their blogger education event, our first stop was the Baking Kitchen where we got an overview of Nestle’s baking products, including Carnation Evaporated Milk. We learned that Evaporated Milk is made with fresh milk that is carefully heated to remove half the water, making it rich and thick with twice as much protein and calcium per serving as liquid milk.  In any recipe that calls for milk, you can substitute an equal amount of Carnation Evaporated Milk and your recipe will taste creamier.  That’s why Carnation Evaporated Milk is called The Cooking Milk!

Thanks to One2One Network and Carnation, I got the opportunity to try it for myself. They sent me coupons for two free cans of Evaporated Milk, the Holiday Recipe Guide, and a gift card to cover the cost of ingredients. My challenge was to take a recipe of my own that calls for milk and replace it with Evaporated Milk.  I also picked a Holiday Recipe to try, which I’ll post tomorrow when I make it.

For my own recipe, I picked my Creamy Italian Noodles. The recipe calls for half a cup of milk, I normally use fat free half n half which is a mix of milk and cream.  I made a double batch and used 8 ounces of Evaporated Milk.  There are three varieties-regular, lowfat and nonfat, I picked regular. The rest of the ingredients are a stick of softened butter, half a cup of parmesan cheese, and 2 envelopes of dry italian salad dressing mix.

Cook a 16 ounce package of medium width egg noodles according to package directions, drain well and place in a large bowl. Immediately add the stick of softened butter and toss gently to coat all the noodles.

Add the parmesan cheese and dry italian salad dressing.

Pour on the evaporated milk.

If you’re wondering why the milk looks off-white, it’s because the heating process slightly carmelizes the milk sugars. It doesn’t change the taste.  Mix everything together well. Some of the milk will sink to the bottom of the bowl, let it stand for a minute so the noodles can absorb the liquid before serving.

And there you have Creamy Italian Noodles made with Carnation Evaporated Milk, the Cooking Milk!  I still have one more recipe to make from the Carnation Holiday Recipe Guide, I’m doing Loaded Potato Potluck Favorite tomorrow along with grilled brats.  Visit Nestle’s Carnation The Cooking Milk website for more great recipes and to download the Holiday Recipe Guide or have it mailed to you.  Having tried it myself, I’m much more likely now to make recipes that call for Evaporated Milk.  I hope you’ll try it too!

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