Homemade Almond Milk & Berry Milk Shake

I have been wanting to start making my own almond milk for quite some time now. That way I can get the freshest and purest milk with NO additives. This can be done easily with a blender and a nut milk bag. The only thing stopping me was that I did not have a nut milk bag yet.




So, I watched a video from FullyRaw Kristina and she made her nut milk in her JUICER!! I was so excited I had to try this immediately. It worked like a charm! This was totally her trick but I want to share it. I know plenty of people have juicer's and would probably never think of making nut milk in them! I am going to provide a couple recipe variations on nut milk.

Almond-Coconut Milk: (Kristina's Recipe)
2-3 cups of soaked almonds
coconut water from 2 fresh young Thai coconuts

Almond-Coconut Milk: (what I did since I did not have 2 coconuts on hand)
1 cup soaked almonds
2 cups coconut water from 1 fresh young Thai coconut
2 cups filtered water

Sweetened Vanilla Almond Milk:
1 cup soaked almonds
4 cups filtered water
2-3 dates
1 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:
You'll want to start by soaking your almonds over night. Drain and rinse them well, then add your soaked almonds and coconut/filtered water to a bowl and ladle them into your juicer together. I ended up running my milk through twice just to be sure and get a nice thick milk. I just poured the milk and almond meal back into my bowl and ladled it into the juicer again. You can strain this again through a mesh strainer if you'd like to be sure and remove all the pulp. Store in a glass, airtight container in the fridge for 3-4 days. I did not have two coconuts on hand so I used half coconut water and half filtered water and it was delicious, I think I actually would prefer this recipe to all coconut water for a less sweet milk!

When you're done making your milk, be sure and save the almond meal! You can either dry it out in a dehydrator to save for baking or use it right away for a gluten free cookie or cracker! It is excellent for cookies!

After I made my nutmilk, I made a blueberry-blackberry "milk shake" based on the recipe from Kristina's video, I made just a couple changes, It was delish! Recipe below!

Blueberry-Blackberry Milk Shake:
1 1/2 cup of mixed blueberries & black berries
2 cups almond-coconut milk
1/2 cup fresh young Thai coconut meat
3-4 dates or other sweetener, like maple syrup, coconut nectar etc.
2 tbsp hemp seeds (optional)

Directions:
Add all ingredients to a blender and run until smooth and creamy! I added hemp seeds to mine to get the extra nutritional benefits and a complete protein.