Day three of cleanse -- keeping it clean with home made almond milk

Today marks day three of my "quit your bellyaching" cleanse.  As I write this, my mysterious pain has been absent for three hours -- I hope to keep it that way.  I've been continuing on my routine of lemon water and cayenne, tea, and a green smoothie in the morning, a nice big salad with homemade green dressing for lunch, and a combination of smoothie, salad, and steamed veggies for dinner.

Today's adventure:  making my own almond milk.  I've been wanting to make my own almond or hemp milk for some time, and my squeaky clean way of eating motivated me to give it a try.  Buying almonds at Trader Joe's made it even more economical -- it's $4.49 for a one pound bag -- usually I buy almonds in bulk for $6.99 a pound.  It's rare that I find a packaged item to be less expensive than in the bulk section, so I've been heading to TJ's a bit more often to snag these yummy raw almonds.

This morning I soaked 1 cup of almonds in 2 cups of water, and let them hang out in the fridge for about 8 hours.  I took off all the skins -- a sort of fun and meditative process -- and rinsed almonds really well in a strainer.

Almond skins

Next, I poured them into the blender, along with 3 cups of water and 1/2 teaspoon of stevia (stevia is alkaline -- yeay!).

I let the blender do it's thing for about 2 minutes, until a super luscious froth formed at the top.  This was absolutely delightful.  As a former barista, I miss being able to steam milk all nice and frothy and enjoy it with a spoon.  It was like the cream that forms on top of cow's milk.  So heavenly.

After froth sampling, I poured the milk into a strainer that I had lined with a few pieces of cheese cloth.  I squeezed all the excess liquid out of the cheese cloth, and got not only some super awesome almond milk, but also some exciting almond meal!

Almond Milk!

Almond Meal!

Needless to say, I'm a bit giddy about the almond meal.  Maybe a cleanse friendly cookie will come out of this?  Or a pancake surprise for Andrew?  I'll dream about it tonight and come up with something to make tomorrow.  Oh, the possibilities!

This recipe yields about 3 cups of almond milk, and 2 cups of almond meal.

Have you ever made your own milk?  Or milked a cow or goat?  What's your favorite kind of "milk" to drink?