Last year I discovered that I’m a bit lactose intolerant. That was a huge bummer because I love dairy, especially full cream milk in my cappuccino of a morning. My intolerance got so bad I was in pain and often felt like I was going to crap my pants – not a nice feeling! I wasn’t giving up on my coffee so I had to find an alternative.
I started with soy milk and then read about how riddled with GMOs it is and to be honest I don’t care too much for the taste. I then went on to try Almond Milk. It’s amazing how many brands sweeten their almond and soy milks. I didn’t want any sugar…artifical or otherwise. I finally found that the Sanitarium Unsweetened brand was the best one around for taste. I used it for a while until I scrutinised the label a bit more and discovered it had carageenen. Almond Milk is also very expensive at $3.96 per litre.
I decided to do some research and found that it’s super easy to make your own almond milk. The best part about it is that you control what goes in it. My recipe has 2 ingredients: Almonds and Water. Some people add sweetener or dates. I prefer my almond milk straight up. Here is my recipe.
Ingredients
1 cup raw almonds (Organic preferably but I just buy normal as its cheaper)
1 litre of water for soaking
1.5 litres extra water for making the milk
Step 1 – Soak
Soak Almonds in 1 litre of water overnight or over 2 nights and drain. This “activates” the almonds and also removes any toxins or pesticides that might still remain.
Step 2 – Whizz
Place Almonds in food processor and whizz for a minute, add 1.5 cups of the extra water and whizz until its very white and creamy.
Step 3 – Squeeze
Pour mixture into a nut milk bag or use a fine muslin or cheesecloth to strain and squeeze the milk from the nuts. Return the the nut pulp into the food processor and repeat from step 2 until you’ve used all of the water
I store my milk in glass jars in the fridge for up to a week. The first litre is extra creamy which I call “full cream” and the second pressing is a bit weaker and I call that “skim”.
Almond milk is yummy, has 65% less calories than normal milk and has many health benefits.
I save the pulp and make almond crackers with it (that will be a future post) so there is absolutely no waste. My 1.5 litres of almond milk works out to cost around $2.50 as I buy a kilo of almonds for $15. So it works out much cheaper than store bought and has no nasties!
