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Monday, April 16, 2012

Almond Milk

I started an oatmeal kick for breakfast. Day 2, I realized I was out of milk. I have to have some milk in my oatmeal or else it is too...oaty, and too much like gruel.

Almonds in the freezer and plenty of water at hand, I gave almond milk a whirl. It's a pretty simple thing: blanch the almonds, peel, blend and, if you like, filter.

Almond Milk
adapted from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison
click to print

1 c whole almonds
3 c water (not including that used for boiling)

Set a saucepan of water to boil. Add almonds.


Almost immediately, the almonds will gradually float indicating the skins are loose. Boil almonds 1-3 minutes before draining. Spread on baking sheet to cool enough to handle, just a few minutes.


Peel almonds by pinching between thumb and forefinger.

They will go flying if you aren't careful.

Place 3 cups of water in a blender and add the almonds. Cover blender and blend about 5 minutes.


The mixture will be foamy. Filter through cheesecloth and sweeten with honey if desired.
You can see the three layers: foam, milk, and minced almond.

Store in carafe or in closed blender jar up to a week.


After the foam settled out a little bit, I tasted the milk and it's fairly mild in the almond flavor yet a little creamy. My intention is to use this to round out my oatmeal and really don't care there are minced nuts in it. Maybe if I had one of those bad-ass blenders, the nuts would get pureed and the milk would be a serious almond flavor blast.

If you do filter the nut pieces out, I think baking them in bread or cookies would work out well. I'll have to try that sometime. Oh yeah, and you might consider preparing more than one cup of almonds since they are a million times better to eat without that bitter skin!

Cost:
  • almonds: $1.40 (based on the price of walnuts since I can't find anywhere on the blog the price of whole almonds)
Total: $1.40 or $0.47 for each of three 1-cup servings.


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