My coworker NaTesha brought some in during the first week of the Whole30 and since then I have wanted to try this recipe. The fates aligned this week and I was able to make this with Hayley. This recipe is relatively easy–just make sure you soak the almonds in advance. I soaked mine for a day and a half.

Ingredients:

1 cup of almonds

2 cups of water

Sweeteners like honey, dates, vanilla, etc.  I used dates.

Directions:

48 hours in advance put the almonds in a bowl and fill the bowl with water so that the almonds are covered. They will plump up during this time, which will make the milk creamy.

When ready to make, drain the almonds and rinse them off. I used a colander. The almonds should feel a bit squishy when pressed on. After rinsing, put the almonds and milk in a blender and pulse to break up the almonds–roughly 30 seconds. Then blend for 2 minutes at the highest speed. After the two minutes the liquid should be opaque–milky {shocking, right?} and the almond pieces should be tiny, all big chunks should be broken down.

Bring the blender over to your colander and line it with either a nut bag { ha ha nut bag} or cheese cloth. Then pour the mixture from the blender through the cheese cloth. It won’t pour quickly, and I suggest having an instrument to help get the liquid through. Once all the liquid has been emptied from the blender, squeeze the remainder out of the cheese cloth. You should yield about 2 cups worth of milk.

Now you can sweeten the milk to taste. What I did was add the milk back to the blender and add about 6 dates and vanilla beans and blended until the dates were chopped up. Then I strained the milk again in the cheese cloth to get out the particles.

Lastly, I put the milk in an adorable mason jar and labeled it, cause that’s just who I am. The milk is only set to last for 2 days, since it is raw and natural. Guess I am going to have a lot of coffee the next few days!