Have you ever walked into the kitchen to make your morning cup of coffee only to discover someone left milk on the counter all night? Or the ice cream?

Often, in warm weather milk goes sour before it can be used. But don't throw it out, even if there is only a little bit left. Sour milk is a valuable kitchen asset! Pour however much you have into a clean glass, and keep it in the fridge until you have accumulated one cup. Plan to use it as soon as it thickens, since milk becomes bitter if it stands too long. Note: Recipes using sour milk must include baking soda.

SOUR MILK BISCUITS

—2 cups flour

—1 tablespoon shortening

—1 cup thick sour milk

—1/4 teaspoon salt

—1/2 teaspoon baking soda

Preheat oven to 400 F. Sift the flour, salt and baking soda together. Rub in the shortening with a spoon. Add the milk, and stir lightly. The dough should be soft. Drop spoonfuls of dough into greased muffin tins, and bake in the oven for 15 to 20 minutes.

Use that melted ice cream to bake a cake. The liquid ingredients, fat and flavor are already right in the ice cream. And if that ice cream just happens to have big chunks of chocolate, pralines, cookie dough, cherries or nuts, that's all the better. Your cake will be filled with yummy goodness.

MELTED ICE-CREAM CAKE

—1 package (18.25 ounces) cake mix

—2 cups melted ice cream, any flavor(s)

—2 large eggs

Preheat oven to 350 F, and move the rack to the middle. Lightly mist a 12-cup Bundt or angel food cake pan with vegetable oil spray and dust it with flour. Shake out the excess flour. Place the cake mix, melted ice cream and eggs in a large mixing bowl. Blend with an electric mixer on low speed for one minute. Increase the mixer speed to medium, and beat two minutes longer, scraping the sides as necessary until the batter is thick and well-blended. Pour the batter into the pan, smoothing the top with the rubber spatula.

Bake the cake until it springs back when lightly pressed with your finger and just starts to pull away from the sides of the pan, about 38 to 42 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven, and place it on a wire rack to cool for 20 minutes. Run a knife around the edge of the cake, and invert it onto a small plate or rack, then again onto a second rack so that the cake is right side up to complete cooling — 30 minutes more. Once it's cool, lightly dust with powdered sugar or your favorite icing.

Notes:

—You can melt the ice cream in the microwave. Select "defrost." Check it and stir it every few minutes until it becomes liquid.

—A pint of ice cream may not produce two cups of melted ice cream because some manufacturers pump air in during the manufacturing process.

—In a pinch, you can leave out the eggs. I did once by accident, and my German chocolate cake mix combined with Haagen-Dazs vanilla ice cream was awesome.

—You can use any cake mix with any combination of ice creams you might have on hand. Boring flavors will produce a bland cake. Get creative with flavors. I've used cake mixes with pudding, double pudding or no pudding, and extra moist or ultra moist mixes — they all produce good results. I've mixed together several flavors and brands of ice cream — even the ice cream that was in the back of the freezer and is covered with ice crystals — to come up with 2 cups.

Mary invites questions, comments and tips at mary@everydaycheapskate.com, or c/o Everyday Cheapskate, 12340 Seal Beach Blvd., Suite B-416, Seal Beach, CA 90740. This column will answer questions of general interest, but letters cannot be answered individually. Mary Hunt is the founder of www.DebtProofLiving.com, a personal finance member website and the author of "Debt-Proof Living," released in 2014. To find out more about Mary and read her past columns, please visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.