D.I.Y. Organic Raw Almond Milk

Yesterday Morning, while I scurried around the house trying to keep up with my two little ones in the daily wake up haze- groggy, waiting for coffee to brew, changing Jasper's diaper, getting pre-breakfast snacks (my kids are snacky people)- I realized it was almond milk making morning and thought, "well, hey, why don't I just take a few photos for the blog while I whip up a batch."  You know- for added circus-like effect.  I've been meaning to share our process of making Raw Organic Almond Milk for some time, and at long last:  today is the day.

We started making our own almond milk early last year when we began to feel uneasy about the sugar additives in the packaged nut milks we were buying at our co-op.  Using cow's milk is not an option for us, as our children are very sensitive to dairy and we ditched rice milk (our first try at non dairy milk) after noticing it, too, was very sugary.  (Bonus!) Making our own milk costs about HALF as much as buying it in the store which is a great thing because almond milk goes fast in this house: we make 2 quarts every two or three days.  While opening a package of milk is admittedly much easier, I feel good about serving a milk beverage to my kids with these five ingredients that I know are simple and pure and, well, healthy:

1c. of Raw Organic Almonds *soaked in 2c. filtered water over night, drain*
7c. filtered water
3 pitted Dates
1/2 vanilla bean
pinch of sea salt

Tools:
nutmilk filter bag (I ordered mine on amazon)
high power blender (we use a Vitamix blender)
Container (this one is our fave)

It was actually my pal Mandy that I friended in (home) child birthing classes whom guided my first attempts at making almond milk.  She writes a really great food blog called Eating Innately, and I've loved every recipe that I've tried.  Especially this one and this one.  I've tweaked our almond milk to our liking and you can do the same (no salt, less sweet- i.e. few dates, no vanilla etc)

Here's the big secret about making almond milk:  it's super easy.  Three steps:  Soak Almonds, Blend ingredients for a few minutes, Strain.  The biggest hang up is preparation.  If you miss a night of almond soaking you are out of luck.  You can always just soak from morning til afternoon, though.

See:

 SOAK:

BLEND (I didn't take blending photos, because, well, it's not pretty)

 STRAIN:

I like to pour a little at a time, squeeze the milk through the mesh and dump the pulp as I go.  It's a little messy but the clean up is no big deal, and the entire make time is under 10 minutes.

I've used this pulp before in another one of Mandy's (eating innately) recipes, and it's also really yum.

 VIOLA!  You've got almond milk, folks!

 I hope you try this easy little DIY yumminess!  My favorite applications include:  with granola (obvi), in a glass over ice with some cold coffee home brew, a great additive to pancakes, smoothies, and even as a substitute for water in making rice!  My kids also drink it by the glass and love it!

Let me know if you try your hand at milk making.  And pass it along- Facebook it, tweet it, pin it, email it to your colleagues.  The jig is up- almond milk is easy to make and it's here to stay.

Enjoy!!