Homemade Almond Milk

Ingredients

1 cup almonds, soaked in water for 4 to 8 hours

4 cups filtered water

Instructions

Firstly, Blanch and soak your almonds.

Soaking removes phytic acid,a  component of oats, grains, nuts and cereals. Blanching also partially sterilises your almonds.

Step 1: Boil water in a saucepan, enough to immerse the almonds.

Step 2; Add almonds, wait one minute, remove from heat, drain and peel.

Step 3. Transfer almonds to a bowl, cover until fully immersed with filtered water and store them in the fridge for 8 hours.

Step 4. Drain the water from the almonds and transfer them into a clean, well washed high power blender and blend until smooth. Top up with more filtered water and blend again. 

Note: make sure all of your utensils are scrupulously clean before decanting or blending. This includes your blender ( nasty residual food from soups, humus etc will cause your milk to spoil early) 

Step 5. Pour the almond puree into a strainer or a nut bag (available from www.reuzi.ie or instore) and using a spoon push to down to extract as much milk as you can. Don’t use your hands and strain using a fine mesh sieve. You may add up to 5 cups of water for every cup of almond puree, depending on how creamy you like your milk.

Step 6. Transfer to a sterile bottle or jar using a clean funnel. To sterilise bottles make sure they have been put through a hot wash cycle either in the dishwasher or scald clean bottles. 

Step 7. Refrigerate immediately

The peelings from your almonds make great compost for plants or your garden. Just add the mulch to your houseplants, herb garden, shrubs.

Enjoy!

This milk should last up to 2 weeks in your fridge. Remember to refrigerate as soon as you have used it to get longer out of your milk. Leaving it out just encourages bacterial growth which will cause it to spoil earlier.