Homemade Almond Milk, Coconut Milk, etc

[Marianne]

In our local grocery store, a 1/2 gal carton of Almond Milk was $3.67.


Almond Milk
Soak one cup of whole almonds overnight. The next morning, drain the almonds and put them in a blender. Add 3 to 4 cups of water, and blend away. Strain solids out by using a nut milk bag or a cloth placed in mesh strainer. Squeeze out every bit of almond goodness. Add a bit of sweetener, touch of vanilla or flavor of your choice. Will keep in the frig for a few days. I like the flavor and thickness of 3 cups of water, but many recipes specifyi 4 cups. You choose.
Spread the almond mash (meal) on a sheet pan and dry in the oven with low heat. It will have the consistency of corn meal and can be used as almond flour in many recipes. If you have a blender with turbo speed, you can turn the almond meal into actual almond flour.


Azure Standard has organic, raw whole almonds for $16.60 - 2 pound bag. http://www.azurestandard.com/shop/product/5613/ Non-organic is $12.95 for a 2 pound bag.

Bob's Red Mill Almond Meal Flour is $9.75 for a one pound bag, $23.65 for a 5 pound bag from their bulk stock - no mention of organic.

Seems like making your own would be the way to go. Fresh almond milk when you want it, fresh almond meal to put in the freezer to use later.

Coconut Milk
One cup of coconut blended with 4 cups of water. Strain solids out. Freeze in ice cube trays for using in recipes or refrigerate and drink. Want a bit stronger flavor? Use less water. Dry the solids, make coconut flour or use in recipes. The mash won't have much of a coconut flavor, but the texture will be there. Good for coconut pudding, pies, breads, sprinkle on fruit salads, etc.

Bob's Red Mill Coconut Flour is $6.20 a pound. http://www.azurestandard.com/shop/product/7293/

I don't have a nut milk bag, but you can use a well washed fine mesh paint strainer, or go low tech - I have two men's hankerchiefs that are designated for kitchen use only.

 

[Corn Woman]

Great info, Our local store had almond milk on sale for $2.50 a half gal but I still couldn't bring myself to buy it at that price. I have 2 lbs of almonds in my pantry and I will make milk this weekend. Thanks for sharing.

 

[txcanoegirl]

I do the same thing with pecans. We harvested several hundred pounds this past season from our 23 producing pecan trees. My husbands eats cereal every morning, and I had been buying almond milk for him. This saves us a lot of money. I have to make up a quart of so every 3 or 4 days. My shelled pecans are in the freezer and I just take out what I need and follow the directions above. I don't measure anything...just guess at what fits in the blender. Sometimes I sweeten with honey and add homemade vanilla, sometimes I don't. I like the "milk" a little richer, so I usually ramp up the proportions of nut to water a little bit. Just be warned that it doesn't taste like cow's milk or even like almond milk or soy milk. It's better than soy milk, not quite as tasty as almond milk. I also dry the "waste" and use it as part of the flour when I make bread, usually substituting it for about 1/2 cup of the white flour.

 

[baymule]

I never knew that. I always wondered how to turn nuts into milk. Just where are the teats on those things?

Sometimes I feel so dumb when I read posts and the light suddenly goes on. Ohhhhh......so THAT'S how you do that! Then after I read the post, I feel MUCH smarter!

 

[txcanoegirl]

I never knew that. I always wondered how to turn nuts into milk. Just where are the teats on those things?

Sometimes I feel so dumb when I read posts and the light suddenly goes on. Ohhhhh......so THAT'S how you do that! Then after I read the post, I feel MUCH smarter!

And does something with nuts have teats?

Seriously...don't feel dumb! I never even thought of pecan milk until last year when we had a good crop of pecans and I started looking for ideas to use them. I even devised a little press to press oil from them (using my husband's wood clamps). I had to give the clamps back, but in exchange he built me an oil press. Haven't had time to use it, but it's in the kitchen. These ideas aren't for everyone...if you have to buy almonds or pecans, you probably aren't saving any money. But I have pecans in abundance and love them. I've used pecans to make a pseudo nutella (pecans instead of hazelnuts of course), pecan butter instead of peanut butter, ground pecans instead of graham crackers for pie crusts, roll chicken breasts or fish in ground pecans instead of bread crumbs...and the list goes on and on!

By the way...I was in the store yesterday and saw pecan oil for sale. My eyeballs almost fell out at the prices. Pecan oil is very good, too. It has a nice light taste and a high smoke point, meaning it's good to cook with. Better for you than vegetable oils.

 

[Denim Deb]

Baymule, you find the teats on the nuts the same place you find the nipples on chickens.

 

[Marianne]

Well, I kept saying 'nut bag' instead of 'nut milk bag'. Not purposely, mind you, it just came out that way. My husband cringed every time I said it. LOL

Txcanoegirl, I wondered about the other nuts, wondered what their 'drink' would taste like. The only nuts that are grown locally here are black walnuts and I really don't like them at all. People here have tried pecans with no luck, too bad because I love those. I have considered hazelnuts as they are supposed to be able to grow here. But I have learned that just because it can grow here, it doesn't mean it will perform, ya know?

I tried the rice milk. That was about nasty, kind of like starchy water. I can get soybeans here from the farmers, but they would probably be Monsanto crap. Most of them plant 'Roundup Ready Soybeans'. Azure Standard has some organic ones, but since I have DH to please, I'll probably stick to the almond milk. At least we had a test run with that and he liked it.

 

[baymule]

Baymule, you find the teats on the nuts the same place you find the nipples on chickens.

My chickens have nipples (on a bucket)........now where are those teats??

 

[moolie]

Curious why others drink/use nut milks? Is it a taste thing?

I'm lactose intolerant, so if I want something "milky" I buy it--but I also need the calcium that the commercial stuff is enriched with, can't get it from the homemade stuff. I wouldn't buy it/use it if I could have the real thing.

 

[k15n1]

My chinese mother-in-law makes soy milk the same way.

Dry almond meal should keep at room temp, right? I read you can replace 25% of flour in cookie recipes (proper 1-2-3 cookies, not greasy drop type things) without problems.

Processed (roasted, salted, coated) almonds are 6-7 $/lb at fleet farm. Seems like raw should be quite a bit cheaper.

I wonder if a more complicated extraction would result in better milk.... What if you grind the stuff into flour first and soak it overnight? I've made almond butter and it's on the greasy side---not as much as peanuts---and you can't use the stone for grinding flour.