This recipe doesn't fall under the cheaper category. It does fall under healthier because you know what's in it category.
Let's make home made almond milk!
It's pretty easy and doesn't involve a lot of work. Most of it is time... time to soak the almonds, time to stain the almonds, etc.
Here's what you need:
2 cups raw and organic almonds
A bowl of water
4 cups water (not included in the soaking water)
Agave Syrup
- Place the almonds in a bowl and cover with about an inch of water. They will plump as they absorb water. The almond milk is creamier when you let them soak longer so shoot for about 18 hours if you can. We did it over night and through the next morning.
- Drain the almonds and rinse them off. They will be all puffy. Perfect! Discard the soaking water because it contains phytic acid, which affects the body's ability to absorb nutrients.
- Place the almonds in the blender and cover with 4 cups of water. You can do two bacthes in the blender here if your belnder isn't big enough or strong enough.
- Blend at the high speed for 2 minutes. The water will turn white and the almonds will be reduced to tiny tiny tiny pieces.
- Strain the almonds through cheese cloth or any other very fine strainer that you would use for jelly.
- After it has drained for about 15 mins, then gather up the material around the remaining paste and press or squeeze as hard as you can. I choose to put a small plate on top and then put a heavy weight on top of that. I let it sit for another 15 minutes.
- Add your agave to taste. I added 5 drops at a time and taste tested it as we went along. In our house, 20 drops was the go to amount for this much almond milk.
- Seal up what ever you aren't drinking right now and store it in the fridge for 2-3 days.
- I also put some in the freezer, but we haven't tried that yet to let you know how it worked. I will update when we do.
Now here's the part where you can be super frugal. You can make the remaining almond paste into almond flour which is great for baking. Spread the left over almond paste into very thin layers onto your dehydrator tray (as though you were making fruit roll ups) and dehydrate at 120 for about 8 hours.
Dehydrating time will totally vary based on how wet and or thin yours is. So check it at 8 hours and run it for more if you need to. You should have super dry chips when you're done. Run these through a coffee or herb grinder until it's floury dust and store in air tight container.
Let us know how yours turns out. We love it and are very happy to know the origin of our food and exactly what's in it!
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