Yeehaw, I'm milking….almonds??

Yes, I had this bright idea to make my own almond milk.  I just bought a pack of avocados from, none other than, Costco so I can start making avocado smoothies again. I love my avocado smoothies made with almond milk.  Unfortunately, I forgot to buy the almond milk and I recall a friend telling me that she makes her own sometimes.  So, I googled it and figured I’d give it a try.

Step 1 – First soak the almonds in water overnight to make the milk in the morning (or you can soak them all day and make the milk at night).  Keep the almonds in the fridge while they are soaking.  I used a cup of almonds to start. 

Step 2 – In the morning, drain the almonds and rinse well with cold water. This picture isn’t really necessary as I’m sure you know what it means to rinse almonds, but it made for a good action shot. 🙂
 

Step 3 – Place the almonds in a blender with some water to cover and blend well. 

Step 4 – Continue to slowly add more water and blend until the blender is almost filled to the top.  I also added some agave and vanilla extract to give it a little sweet flavor.

Step 5 – Pour the mixture through a sieve into another container or bowl to separate the almond pulp from the liquid.  Here is where I should have followed the suggestions I found online and used an almond milk bag (I’m thinking this is similar to cheese cloth).  It was just too hard to extract all the liquid without getting some of the pulp into the final product.

Next time I will plan my experiment a little better and have something in which I could use this good almond pulp. It can be used in anything where you’d want almond flavor…cookies, cakes, pancakes, breads, etc. I, unfortunately, threw it out…very wasteful and a major deduction in the e.r.t.h. rating!

So without using the almond milk bag, I think I really reduced the amount of milk I was able to produce (why does that statement remind me so much of nursing my babies….agh! Sorry for that!). Anywho…I happened to have an empty (huge from Costco) apple juice bottle in which I decided to store the almond milk. I know, so ghetto.

And this looks frighteningly (is that a word?) like a science experiment so, as not to cause any family confusion or hysteria:

So would I do this again? I definitely want to try it again using an almond milk bag to see how much more milk I can get out of it. Then it would be a matter of how much I’m spending on almond milk. Making my own definitely saves a little bit of money and I’m guessing is healthier because nothing is processed, but if I’m only buying it/using it once a month then I’d rather pay an extra dollar for convenience. But that’s just me.