Ever Tried Healthy Almond Milk?

Almond milk is very healthy and moreso, very easy to make fresh. Here is the recipe:

  Fresh raw almond milk is delicious, healthy, unprocessed, and economical. There is no waste. And this tastes much better than store-bought. The resulting almond meal is a free bonus, useful in cookies, crumb crusts, porridge, granolas, or in lieu of bread crumbs in stuffings and dressings, breaded crusts and bread. 

You will be using about 3 cups of water for every 1 cup of raw almonds out of the shell. Soak overnight in enough water to cover with a little water more, to provide room for swelling. A quick whip in a powerful blender results in a thick, frothy almond puree, ready to be squeezed in a mesh bag or jelly bag, cheesecloth, or something similar. 

Simply place your cheesecloth or mesh strainer bag over the bowl, pour and scoop your puree into it, draw it closed, and start squeezing until the almond meal is as dry as you can get it. Don't add any more water at this point. The harder you squeeze, the more creamy and nutritious your milk will be, but not to worry, whatever you didn't get into milk will still be eaten in the form of the almond meal, so there is nothing wasted.  

Then pour the undiluted almond to filter, when it slows, gentle stirring makes filtering go faster. At the end,  press the bit of almond paste in the bottom to extract the last and creamiest bit. This finer, white almond meal is good to keep and dry separately and use as almond flour. You can make this easier by straining it the second time directly into glass half-gallon(depending on how much cups you made) refrigerator pitcher, and then adding more water to fill the pitcher, taste by adding water, but better too rich than too thin, because too rich can be solved by adding water.

 Let it sit covered in the refrigerator pitcher for 24 hours. You will notice a creamy layer floats on top, but with a few gentle shaking sessions and a day or so in the refrigerator, it will blend nicely and taste superbly creamy. Once that has happened, add sweetener if you choose, add salt a pinch at a time, shaking in between and tasting, until the flavor goes from a little "flat" with no salt. (perfect). If not sure, hold back on another pinch of salt because one pinch too many ruins it. 

If you accidentally add that one extra pinch past perfect taste. add more sweetener and it will no longer taste salty. You can add vanilla, almond extact or anything of choice. 

As for the almond meal, that may be another Instructable, but in brief, you spread it out on a half-sheet in a 300 degree F oven stirring a few times here and there until toasty and dry. Store in a jar, use as breadcrumbs, crumb crusts, breading, stuffing, cookies, cakes, and bars, or make into low glycemic granola or almond bread. mmmmmmmmmmm. delicious!! Enyoy!

Have a great day.