One of the best things about a Raw diet for me was the discovery of Almond Milk!
Its a great alternative to Cows and Soy Milk. We use it in a lot of things from smoothies, to chia seed puddings - and its very easy to make. Issy had her first taste of Almond Milk at around 9 months. Its a great way to get Calcium into your little ones. See this post here
It is important to soak your nuts and they should be soaked for a minimum of 8 hours. The best way is to just soak the nuts over night in filtered water.
Why do some peel the almonds after they have been soaking?
Nuts contain lectins which are you cant digest. By Soaking and peeling the almonds you remove the lectins and the body is therefore able to digest the almonds. I also found that by removing the skins the Almond Milk is more like a milk texture and taste.
We try and remove the skins as much as possible! But a nut milk bag will also help catch the skins a little.
What you will need...
- 1 cup almonds (bio dynamic/organic preferable)
- 4 Cups of water
- Optimum Blender
- A Nut Milk bag
- A re-usable milk bottle or mason jar
- You can add a sweetener if you want such as honey, agave or cinnamon, stevia. But we just leave it all natural.
Process
- Soak the almonds overnight or for min 8 hours in water to covering them.
- If you want to peel the skins - simply boil water and place the almonds in hot water for about 30 seconds and give them a good stir. Drain the hot water - This helps remove the skins easily! squeeze the nuts between your fingers and the skins should pop off easily.
- Place your peeled almonds ( or soaked almonds) in your high powered blender ( we use the Optimum Blender) with the 4 cups of filtered water and blend away until completely smooth.
- Drain the milk through a nut bag bag (we stock these over at The Raw Food Store) Separating the milk and almond pulp And you have Almond Milk! It is that easy!
- We store our Almond milk in Mason Jars and Glass milk bottles and it should always be stored in the fridge, will last for 2-3 days.
- You can make extra almond milk, and it can be stored for up to 4 days. It must be filled to the top of a jar and a sealed lid placed on top - it is the same method as storing juice.
- We keep the almond pulp for making our yummy raw bread. Simply place the pulp in the freezer this can be used at a later date for recipes that require almond meal.!
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