Almond Milk

When I started reintroducing foods with the help of my dietitian in October 2015, I spent a great deal of time researching recipes that I could make with the very few limited ingredients that I had. Basically I was introducing one food ingredient a week so it took me 8 weeks to double my food intake to 16 ingredients. It was a painfully slow process, but it worked! (The process then sped up hugely once I started neural retraining - I'll tell you more about that in another blog post.)

But because it was such a slow process in the beginning, I always wanted to be 100% sure I was making the most out of the few foods that I could eat. So I would search and search until I found the perfect recipe. And then I would usually still need to make some substitutions because what I could use was so limited.

And now I wish to pass on some of my favourite recipes to you. These recipes are great for people with food allergies or sensitivities or anyone who follows a Paleo lifestyle or anyone who just generally wishes to have a diet of more natural and wholesome - but still delicious - foods.

And this week I give you homemade almond milk from an amazing food blogger: Danielle Walker at Against All Grain. I'm very grateful to cooks/bloggers like her for having made things so much easier for me with all their amazing recipes.

Photo by Against All Grain

I've always loved milk ever since I was a child. But through my illness I had developed a lot of anxiety around the idea of dairy and to my dietitian's and mother's dismay I was adamant that I would not be introducing dairy in the foreseeable future (actually I was convinced I never would). Fast forward to today and thanks to the neural retraining, I now take dairy in all its forms.

But back then I found that I was really missing milk. So I decided homemade almond milk was the way to go. But for some reason I had put it into my head that almond milk was really complicated to make.

Until I found this recipe. And realised that in a few minutes and with absolutely no trouble I could have delicious almond milk with no unwanted additives. Which meant I could have biscuits dunked in milk and granola with milk (I'll give you the recipes for the biscuits and granola another time.) Which was super exciting for me!

Funnily enough the first time I made the almond milk, I sweetened it with grapes because I don't like dates (which is what Danielle uses) and hadn't yet introduced any sweetener. (Eventually I replaced the grapes with about ¾ tablespoon honey and I must say it then tasted much better. But it was also ok without the honey.) 

Danielle also gives some awesome tips about freezing soaked almonds so that you always have some available when it's time to make another batch of the milk and about using the pulp for other recipes so that there's no waste. And I had eventually found that I could even make a large batch of the almond milk and freeze some for later. The consistency does change a bit after defrosting, but still it never bothered me one bit.

So what are you waiting for? Grab your blender, some almonds, water, salt and a date and some sort of sieve (I bought a nut milk bag from Amazon which was cheap and really easy to use) - and within a few minutes you can enjoy the most delicious almond milk. Click here for the recipe.

Let me know how it goes for you in the comments below or on Facebook if you do decide to try it out. Enjoy it :)