Make Your Own Nut Milk Lately?
I’ve learned so much about raw and living foods in the past few months that I don’t know where to begin telling you. After re-learning to cook when I adopted a vegan diet seven years ago, a raw diet feels like you’re starting over yet again. Only with raw foods, it’s not called “cooking”–it’s called “food production”!
Although students prepare almond milk numerous times during 4-weeks at Matthew Kenney Academy, it was especially satisfying to make almond milk while at my mother’s home recently, using a regular old blender (no Vitamix required) and a makeshift nut-milk bag (paint strainer) purchased at Home Depot.
Being able to make staple foods usually bought from a store will give you a great sense of self-reliance, and preparing nutritious almond milk is quick and easy (especially so if you’re a cow). Raw almonds provide a rich source of vitamin E, calcium, phosphorous, iron and magnesium.
Simple Almond Milk Recipe
Ingredients:
1 cup almonds
3-4 cups filtered water
Instructions:
Soak almonds in water overnight (8-12 hours)
Drain and rinse almonds, then throw in blender
Add water, and blend at highest level until smooth (may take 2-3 minutes, but don’t allow milk to become hot)
Pour milk through your nut milk bag over a bowl
Squeeze nutmilk bag to remove all milk from almond pulp
Retain pulp for future use (dehydrate or freeze), and rinse your nutmilk bag
Transfer milk to a quart mason jar and refrigerate (keeps up to 1 week)
You may want to sweeten your almond milk to taste with dates or agave, flavor it with vanilla, and add a little lecithin to keep it from separating (or you can just shake before using).
Almond milk is perfect for breakfast over organic rolled oats (soaked overnight), sprouted oat or buckwheat groats, wheat berries, granola, or your favorite cereal.
In addition, the milk recipe above works with all kinds of shelled raw nuts and seeds, including pecans, Brazil nuts, sunflower, pumpkin and sesame seeds, to name a few.
While anyone can make almond milk easily, knowing a little about raw cuisine does bring you additional advantages. For example, after preparing almond milk, the pulp can be dehydrated and ground into almond flour, which is used in raw breads, crackers, cookies, etc.
As a result of using nut flours, many raw vegan recipes are naturally gluten free and soy-free. Even if you’re not following a plant-based diet, you can easily use nut milks instead of dairy in all your recipes, raw or cooked. So why not try making your own nut milk today? As always, your comments are much appreciated!
This post is also available in: Japanese
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