With Monsanto’s destroying of the dairy community with its hormonal revolution, it’s refreshing to know you can still drink milk but from other, unusual sources. Take almonds for one. There are plenty of almond milks on the market, but still, you do not know what’s in them. Artificial colors? Artificial sweeteners? Preservatives? Why not just make your own almond milk. It’s rather simple, actually.

INGREDIENTS

• 1.5 cups whole raw almonds (or blanched)
• 4 cups water
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1.5 tbs maple syrup or honey… or stevia if you must
• dash cinnamon
• optional sea salt

OTHER EQUIPMENT

• Blender
• Metal strainer
• Cheesecloth
• Capturing bowl

DIRECTIONS

Soak almonds in water overnight, or at least 4 hours. Submerge them completely in water.  This will soften them.

Remove from the soak and place in blender.

Add 1.5 cups of water and blend.  Blend the almonds and water for 1-2 minutes. If your blender is weak, you’ll probably need to stop a few times and move things around with a spatula. Do not be surprised or feel hopeless if the mixture starts out chunky. This is normal and to be expected.  After a few minutes of blending it will start to look smoother and prettier.

Add cinnamon, vanilla and sweetener and last 2.5 cups of water. Blend for an additional 3-5 minutes. Adjust these to enhance the taste. You can also add some salt, too!

Meanwhile, line a metal strainer with 3-4 layers of cheesecloth and place over a capturing bowl or container.

Pour mixture into strainer. Mixture needs to go through both the cheesecloth and strainer to remove the solids

When you’ve poured out the entire blender, wait for most of the liquid to strain then pick up the cheesecloth and wrap it around the leftover solids, squeezing the excess liquid out into the container. (just so you know, the leftover almond grit in the cheesecloth can be used as almond flour for baking after it’s been dried out)

Chill your homemade almond milk and enjoy! ! !

Yields about 3-4 cups of  homemade almond milk beverage. Hard to determine the calorie count of this since timing of how long you soak makes a difference.