To make Almond "Milk", either use previously washed and soaked nuts or soak the nuts 8-12 hours in advance, pouring off the liquid after at least 8 hours. This liquid is tasty, I know, but it is full of toxins and dust. My aunt who has acute celiac's disease even has to pick her own nuts (I think principally walnuts) as in the processing, the rollers are lightly dusted with flour, and you can bet that flour is the cheapest on the market, wheat aka gluten! So there might be trace amounts of many unwanted things on or in the tough skin that should be removed. And I'll testify that since I started cleaning nuts this way, I can eat nuts again. Before, they made the lining of my mouth swell or I had other reactions, probably based on the amount of mold and pesticides in the skins. Soaking takes time and pre-planning, so I keep a big bag of pre-washed and dehydrated nuts in the fridge for my little Almond "Milk" emergency fixes :)
In 3 cups of water, blend 2-3 handfuls of nuts. Add a little cinnamon and a dash of cloves. On special occasions I even indulge in a little non-alcoholic vanilla that has several vanilla beans shoved down in it to REALLY intensify the taste. Then in my BlendTec I blend the mixture once and sometimes twice on the "soup" cycle, which heats the liquid. When finished, I have a foamy, luxury hot drink to sip over a good book!
Sprinkling cinnamon, cloves, cardamon and/or coriander on top is totally optional.
Hello Cheryl,
ReplyDeleteThank you for this wonderful recipe. It's soooooo tasty! Do you strain the milk after you blend almonds? Is the almond pulp irritative for the digestive track?
I made my walnut milk by your recipe (1 cup presoaked walnuts to 3 cups of water )and I loved it. Walnut pulp is very soft and creamy and I did not have to strain walnut milk, I just put the thick pulp into my soup bowl or in salad. Yum!
Cheryl, do you also make hemp milk? Hemp by itself is too heavy on my GI. I tried hemp powder on my salads but also got constipated. It's such a shame to give up on a great plant protein source. I'd like to see if hemp milk works for me.
Thanks.
Dear V,
DeleteI used to be a huge fan of almond milk and almond butter but after a while I think I saturated my body with it and my body got grumpy when I ate it, so have really cut back. I think it was more almond butter that started annoying me, and this is prob because almonds used in almond butters (like many nut butters) are not the best ones. Choice nuts are for packaging whole or in nice pieces while the dusty, moldy, whatever ones get blended. Anyway, blending my own nut butters and nut milks with a high speed blender was good. The unstrained almond milk didn't bother me, but I know people who get upset by it.
I've never tried hemp milk but was enjoying Brazil nut milk for a bit but my breasts started swelling and getting too sensitive. None of my friends complained of that, but I did do some research that said people shouldn't have more than 6 Brazil nuts a day because of the huge whollop of selenium (which is typically good but in large amts isn't). The bottom line: do everything in moderation!