homemade almond milk (raw, vegan)

   I have to be honest. I don't like store bought almond milk. The only thing I use it for is to make smoothies for the kids. I skeptical about making this, but the almonds were on sale and I figured if I didn't like it the kids would be drinking smoothies for breakfast for a few days.
   I got the recipe here. But I'm going to tell you what I did, again, I'm not very good at following recipes exactly...

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups soaked almonds
3 1/2 cups filtered water
pinch of sea salt
2 tsp vanilla extract


Directions:
*Soak almonds over night.
   Put almonds in a bowl that has a lid. Add about 2 cups of warm water, put lid on, and
   enjoy the rest of your evening. Drain and rinse the almonds, then peel the skins off
   (optional)
*Place everything in blender and blend on high for about a minute.
*Place a cloth napkin over a pitcher and pour milk through to strain.
*Squeeze and ring napkin out to get as much liquid out as possible.
*Refrigerate you awesome, yummy milk and enjoy!

   The first time I made this I did follow the recipe exactly, but thought that the honey made it too sweet. So this time I left it out all together and it was Delicious! See? Easy peasy!

Soaking the almonds

Peeling the almonds

Everything in the blendtec

After it's all been blended

My napkin over my pitcher

Pouring in the milk to strain

You do have to hold the napkin to keep it from falling in the pitcher

 



After the blender's empty, pull your napking up

 Squueze and wring out the liquid

 

Now that's it all wrung out

You're left with this beautiful almond pulp

Place it in a bowl and store in the fridge until you decide what you wanna do with it

I keep my milk in a mason jar

You know you're thirsty now!

This morning I enjoyed it with my oatmeal.

 

 

   I posted a recipe for making cereal using the left over almond pulp. I also used some of the pulp to "bread" my eggplant parmesean today at lunch. I will be looking into more useful and creative ways to use this beautiful by product, and I'll definitely let ya know what I come up with!