December 24: Menu Plan:
Roasted Organic Turkey au Jus (following http://recipes.howstuffworks.com/turkey-oven-roasted-organic.htm)
Cranberry Sauce (process in food processor with dates to taste - a raw food)
Fennel Purée (cut, steam, mash)
Butternut Squash with Honey Pecan and Ghee Topping (cut, bake, top, bake)
Creamed spinach with bacon bits (with whipping cream 24-hour yogurt)
Medley of pickled vegetables
Green salad with radishes and garlic vinaigrette
Fruit Spice Cake-- or it is Spice Fruit Cake?
Apple "pie" crustless, but with nut topping
Boxing Day: Update/Post-mortem on Christmas Menu
Turkey was great. Roasted it with loads of cloves and allspice, and the apple stuck with cloves where the stuffing normally goes. Loads of salt, at least to my mind since I grew up in a low-salt household. But it was just right. For once, did not overcook the turkey. The carrots, celery, onion and garlic head halves that made a bed for the bird were addictive and more than made up for the lack of stuffing. Total success.
Forgot to make the cranberry and date sauce although it only takes 2 or 3 minutes. We had pomegranate seeds instead, which was really good. Today I'll make the c.s. to have with leftover turkey, of which there is A LOT, since it was enormous - less cooking for me in the next few days, he he.
Fennel purée: I made it in the food processor and added about 1/3 navy beans to thicken. Total success.
Butternut Squash with sweet nut topping: everyone called it the Sweet Fauxtatoes. Even more delish than the real thing. I had baked the butternut slices the day before, so all I had to do was pull of the peels, mash with a potato masher right in the pyrex casserole, sprinkle with pecan pieces, drizzle with the melted butter and honey mixture, and pop in the oven for 20 minutes. Total success.
Creamed spinach was wonderful. I had cooked the spinach the day before, sprinkled with a little lemon juice and stored in the fridge. Cooked the bacon in the morning, with the breakfast bacon, just 2 extra slices. Just before serving, warmed the spinach to warm enough, not hot, so the probiotics in the whipping cream yogurt wouldn't be harmed. Mixed in the yogurt. Total success.
Pickled veggies: didn't serve them, no room on table.
Salad - just romaine and peelered carrots (peel carrot, throw away peels, then keep peeling for very thin slivers). Good. Nothing new there but we have a green salad with almost every meal.
Apple Non-Pie was great. It's just the recipe for Baked Apple Slices in Breaking the Vicious Cycle, except that I use 1 apple per person, almost no honey, and add 3 prunes per person. Let soak overnight in the lemon juice after mixing well. Just before dinner, sprinkle with cinnamon and put in oven for 20 minutes. Total success.
Fruit and Spice cake: didn't get a chance to make, and anyway DD had made 2 kinds of cookies. Her own recipe and she improves it every time. They were sweet and chewy and very tasty. She promises to write the recipe as a guest poster soon. The great thing about non-grain, non-starch cookies and bread is that they don't dry out.
Oh, and I did make a great loaf of Lois Lang's Luscious Loaf, but forgot to serve it, so today we'll have TURKEY SANDWICHES FOR LUNCH! Yum.
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Perpetual broth, part 2, and Kombucha, part 0
So as I wrote in my last post, I tried Perpetual Broth with a whole chicken. This was a "mature chicken" with relatively less fat on it than regular chickens. On day 5, I had to throw it all away. It looked and tasted burned and had a thick layer of fat on it. Not that I mind fat. But this fat didn't smell good. Just to make sure I had to throw it away, I drank a cup of it for breakfast, after adding salt and a little garlic, and unfortunately I can still taste it as I write at 10 p.m.
My crockpot keeps a temperature of 180F on "Warm", which is where it has been since day 1 of Perpetual broth-making. This morning we woke up to an unpleasant burnt smell, the broth was very dark, and tasted burnt. What went wrong? Was it because we haven't developed a habit of drinking several cups of broth a day and just left it slowly simmering for all those hours? I did get 3 nice soups out of that mature chicken, 2 more than I usually do, so I'm still ahead.
So I did some research (Google research) and must inform you, there is a difference between bone broth and meat stock. Dr. NCM recommends just a few hours of simmering for the meat stock. So did my bone broth turn bad because I used a whole chicken and not bones?
Last question: I received an ad for a supplement that uses eggshell membrane as a source of glucosamine, chondroitin and collagen. Anyone know how to use eggshells to extract those goodies from the membrane? Could (free-range) eggshells be dropped in a broth or stock for example? My mother says during WWII in her country people would crush eggshells to a fine flour to add to children's food, for the calcium.
So... Perpetual Broth: Not. Well, not even the week it was supposed to last. But, not a loss either. I'm ready to try again. Might add a dimmer to my crockpot to tone the temp down to 160F.
KOMBUCHA: it is my intent to make some of this awesome drink at home. So I obtained the starter,or "mother", called SCOBY, from a fellow Kombucha maker. Looked up instructions on various websites and from the email of the nice SCOBY sharer. Hmm. Need a gallon glass wide-mouth jar. Biggest one I have holds 7 cups. And after the tea & starter sit for a while I'll need swing-top bottles to pour the kombucha into so it will get fizzy. So, this is why this is part zero: stuck on GO for lack of bottles. Yes, I could order them from Amazon, but that's a capital investment I wasn't counting on and which would pay for a quite a few store-bought bottles of Kombucha. Which taste really nice, have great flavors like Ginger and Lemon, and when you think about it, are one of the VERY FEW THINGS you can buy ready-made when following GAPS nutrition protocol. Am I just
My crockpot keeps a temperature of 180F on "Warm", which is where it has been since day 1 of Perpetual broth-making. This morning we woke up to an unpleasant burnt smell, the broth was very dark, and tasted burnt. What went wrong? Was it because we haven't developed a habit of drinking several cups of broth a day and just left it slowly simmering for all those hours? I did get 3 nice soups out of that mature chicken, 2 more than I usually do, so I'm still ahead.
So I did some research (Google research) and must inform you, there is a difference between bone broth and meat stock. Dr. NCM recommends just a few hours of simmering for the meat stock. So did my bone broth turn bad because I used a whole chicken and not bones?
Last question: I received an ad for a supplement that uses eggshell membrane as a source of glucosamine, chondroitin and collagen. Anyone know how to use eggshells to extract those goodies from the membrane? Could (free-range) eggshells be dropped in a broth or stock for example? My mother says during WWII in her country people would crush eggshells to a fine flour to add to children's food, for the calcium.
So... Perpetual Broth: Not. Well, not even the week it was supposed to last. But, not a loss either. I'm ready to try again. Might add a dimmer to my crockpot to tone the temp down to 160F.
KOMBUCHA: it is my intent to make some of this awesome drink at home. So I obtained the starter,or "mother", called SCOBY, from a fellow Kombucha maker. Looked up instructions on various websites and from the email of the nice SCOBY sharer. Hmm. Need a gallon glass wide-mouth jar. Biggest one I have holds 7 cups. And after the tea & starter sit for a while I'll need swing-top bottles to pour the kombucha into so it will get fizzy. So, this is why this is part zero: stuck on GO for lack of bottles. Yes, I could order them from Amazon, but that's a capital investment I wasn't counting on and which would pay for a quite a few store-bought bottles of Kombucha. Which taste really nice, have great flavors like Ginger and Lemon, and when you think about it, are one of the VERY FEW THINGS you can buy ready-made when following GAPS nutrition protocol. Am I just
Friday, December 9, 2011
Perpetual broth, pickled veggies
I've been toying with the idea of the perpetual broth for a long time so this post
http://nourishedkitchen.com/perpetual-soup-the-easiest-bone-broth-youll-make
really made sense. So yesterday morning, I dropped a whole "mature chicken" in my six-quart crockpot, covered it with water, and set in on Low. The mature chicken is skinny and makes great broth. No salt, no herbs, no veggies, just the chicken and the water (filtered). That evening, I ladled out a beautiful golden broth into my Vitamix, added a couple of cloves of garlic, 4 nice sprigs of cilantro, root and all, a half-inch piece of ginger root, and salt, as well as a few tablespoonfuls of leftover pureed carrots. Whizzed it all to velvety smoothness, added about 1/2 cup of coconut milk. Voilà! Cilantro always gives a lovely color and heavenly taste to soups. Everyone loved it.
As I cleaned up after dinner, I poured water back into the crockpot to cover, and left in on Low all night. Tried the cup-o'broth thing in the morning but I haven't acquired the taste for it yet. It may come.
This morning, I pickled small cucumbers with chopped garlic, dill (dried, didn't have fresh on hand), fresh thyme and oregano, and a bit of hot pepper. Poured the salted water on top, with the kefir starter as directed by Dr. NCM in the GAPS book. I also made a half-gallon jar full of broccoli, carrots and onion pickles, and a third jar was just plain beets. I put them in a cupboard, away from sunlight, to ferment. That cupboard shelf used to hold cereal boxes. GAPS frees up kitchen space! But enterprising GAPSTERS will quickly fill it up.
Yesterday's "The Nature of Things" hosted by David Suzuki was about the new outlook for autism: the gut connection. Didn't quite get to the GAPS nutrition protocol, unfortunately. So the word really hasn't gone around enough. There's lots of money going to research, looking at what exactly is going on in the brain, how the gut dysbiosis affects neurons, and many other different angles. A sad story about a boy who experienced a few weeks of remission after being treated with a targeted antibiotic, but returned into autism because the antibiotic cannot be taken for extended periods. Tragic for the poor mother who got to see the real boy inside for a little while. Wish she had known about GAPS. Now the boy is in his mid teens, probiotics have helped him, but he's still very impaired.
http://nourishedkitchen.com/perpetual-soup-the-easiest-bone-broth-youll-make
really made sense. So yesterday morning, I dropped a whole "mature chicken" in my six-quart crockpot, covered it with water, and set in on Low. The mature chicken is skinny and makes great broth. No salt, no herbs, no veggies, just the chicken and the water (filtered). That evening, I ladled out a beautiful golden broth into my Vitamix, added a couple of cloves of garlic, 4 nice sprigs of cilantro, root and all, a half-inch piece of ginger root, and salt, as well as a few tablespoonfuls of leftover pureed carrots. Whizzed it all to velvety smoothness, added about 1/2 cup of coconut milk. Voilà! Cilantro always gives a lovely color and heavenly taste to soups. Everyone loved it.
As I cleaned up after dinner, I poured water back into the crockpot to cover, and left in on Low all night. Tried the cup-o'broth thing in the morning but I haven't acquired the taste for it yet. It may come.
This morning, I pickled small cucumbers with chopped garlic, dill (dried, didn't have fresh on hand), fresh thyme and oregano, and a bit of hot pepper. Poured the salted water on top, with the kefir starter as directed by Dr. NCM in the GAPS book. I also made a half-gallon jar full of broccoli, carrots and onion pickles, and a third jar was just plain beets. I put them in a cupboard, away from sunlight, to ferment. That cupboard shelf used to hold cereal boxes. GAPS frees up kitchen space! But enterprising GAPSTERS will quickly fill it up.
Yesterday's "The Nature of Things" hosted by David Suzuki was about the new outlook for autism: the gut connection. Didn't quite get to the GAPS nutrition protocol, unfortunately. So the word really hasn't gone around enough. There's lots of money going to research, looking at what exactly is going on in the brain, how the gut dysbiosis affects neurons, and many other different angles. A sad story about a boy who experienced a few weeks of remission after being treated with a targeted antibiotic, but returned into autism because the antibiotic cannot be taken for extended periods. Tragic for the poor mother who got to see the real boy inside for a little while. Wish she had known about GAPS. Now the boy is in his mid teens, probiotics have helped him, but he's still very impaired.
Saturday, November 26, 2011
CCFD conference-induced ramblings
DH and I went to the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of Canada (CCFC) annual "education" meeting a few weeks ago. I asked the first speaker, a gastroenterologist MD who had given us an overview of what is known about these chronic inflammations of the digestive tract, his take on SCD/GAPS. He had heard of the diet but said IBD varies too much from person to person to make one diet work for all. Similarly, all the speakers said there is NO CURE for IBD and NO KNOWN CAUSE.
But the book "Breaking the Vicious Cycle" does offer a very good theory of the cause, and a cure, even if the author calls it a "remission" and not a cure. So apparently the word has not gone out enough; it has not reached these speakers. Mainstream medicine recognizes that there is a genetic factor and an environmental factor, but apparently food is not high on the list of environmental factors. They mentioned stress, for example.
One speaker, the nutritionist, did mention very rapidly that intestinal flora equilibrium is the latest direction some researchers are taking. So there's a chance that SCD/GAPS will become mainstream in some not-too-distant future.
I came home comforted for another reason, too: because ALL the facts I heard at this conference fit in perfectly with the GAPS theory. None of the facts contradicted it. Discussing the session with DH on the way home, I realized just how important the GAPS theory really is. IMHO, it's like Darwin's Natural Selection, which made sense of the theory of evolution, made all the puzzle pieces fit. Similarly, the GAPS theory makes all the pieces fit, the digestive symptoms, the mental symptoms, the vaccinations, the antibiotics, the breastfeeding, etc. It really is an eye-opener and I had many epiphanies reading the book.
For those who don't have the GAPS book, and it is expensive, there's a lot of information on the gapsdiet.com website. These articles:
But the book "Breaking the Vicious Cycle" does offer a very good theory of the cause, and a cure, even if the author calls it a "remission" and not a cure. So apparently the word has not gone out enough; it has not reached these speakers. Mainstream medicine recognizes that there is a genetic factor and an environmental factor, but apparently food is not high on the list of environmental factors. They mentioned stress, for example.
One speaker, the nutritionist, did mention very rapidly that intestinal flora equilibrium is the latest direction some researchers are taking. So there's a chance that SCD/GAPS will become mainstream in some not-too-distant future.
I came home comforted for another reason, too: because ALL the facts I heard at this conference fit in perfectly with the GAPS theory. None of the facts contradicted it. Discussing the session with DH on the way home, I realized just how important the GAPS theory really is. IMHO, it's like Darwin's Natural Selection, which made sense of the theory of evolution, made all the puzzle pieces fit. Similarly, the GAPS theory makes all the pieces fit, the digestive symptoms, the mental symptoms, the vaccinations, the antibiotics, the breastfeeding, etc. It really is an eye-opener and I had many epiphanies reading the book.
For those who don't have the GAPS book, and it is expensive, there's a lot of information on the gapsdiet.com website. These articles:
http://gapsdiet.com/uploads/
are especially good at giving you the gist of the theory.
Another clue that the GAPS nutrition protocol is right on target: many other researchers and clinicians have come to the same or almost the same conclusions about what to eat and not to eat. There's the paleo/primal diet, the Weston A. Price "Nourishing Traditions" diet, the Atkins diet, and many more. They get very close to the GAPS/SCD. Several different pathways leading to the same conclusion. Weston A. Price went all over the world looking at what people eat, and found the fermented foods crucial to human survival. The paleo diet looks at what our ancestors could eat before agriculture introduced grains as the primary calorie source. GAPS puts the best of all the diets together.
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
A comment I posted on Mothering.com
(The question was, How often and what to feed a 10 month old. My reply also addressed some of the other replies on that website.)
http://www.mothering.com/community/t/1330585/how-often-and-what-to-feed-a-10-month-old#post_16708488
1)
I don't understand the taboo on mushy foods. Our foremothers certainly
chewed up foods for their babies. Maybe that's the origin of kissing.
Maybe that's why babies have an instinct to dig into our mouths with
their little fingers. Chewed up food probably also helped the babies'
digestion, since the mother's saliva is full of enzymes. Traveling in
Africa, I shared a calabash of beer whose making involved the village women
chewing starchy roots and spitting out the mush, adding water and
allowing to ferment! And this is drunk by the whole village. So
chewing for your own baby? natch.
2)
Given what we know about sugar, I wouldn't give babies cereals. When
digested, starches turn into sugar! Would you be feeding spoonful after
spoonful of sugar to your baby? Rice, wheat, oats, bread, pasta, etc.
all turn into sugars in the digestive system. When digested. Some
can't be digested, and they feed the bad bacteria and yeasts (Candida,
C. difficile, etc) that have been identified by some researchers as
co-factors for autism, Crohn's disease, IBS, asthma, and a host of other diseases.
As
the mother of a special needs DD now grown up and severely
schizophrenic, who now has a 16-month-old (my DGD) and another on the
way, I wish I had known when she was small what is now known about
sugar, cereals, gut dysbiosis, and their horrific effects on the immune
system, the brain, and development. I remember DD had a "sensitive stomach" as a child. I remember how she always craved sweets. It
didn't seem that important then. We were pretty health-conscious for
our time but the knowledge about the sugar/starch/dysbiosis just wasn't
there and she had sugar every day. Plus rice, bread, potatoes, etc. I
can't turn back the clock, but our household is now following the
SCD/GAPS diet (easy to search online). It's a huge effort, but we're
hoping this will bring some improvement to her condition and PREVENT her
children from following the same path. Conventional medicine gives the
offspring of schizophrenics a tenfold chance of being sz compared to the
rest of the population. They think it's a genetic predisposition -
maybe it's (also?) a learned food preference, compounded by the passing
on of the wrong gut bacteria from mother to baby at birth.
BOTTOM
LINE? Emphasize fruits, veggies, nut butters and milks (esp. coconut
milk), homemade yogurt (one survey discovered that 2 out of 10 brands
chosen randomly on supermarket shelves contained NO live bacteria, and
another significant number only had 10% of what was stated on the
labels), broths, fish, etc. both for your consumption (some of the
toxins created by the "bad" bacteria pass into breast milk, which
explains why autism can start very early, even in a breastfed baby) and
the baby's, and you won't need to worry about the other co-factors like
antibiotics and immunizations. For more details, look at the SCD and
GAPS diet. You don't have to follow it 100% like we now do - which is
not easy - but being aware will help you make the right food choices for
the whole family, to prevent autism, allergies, and many other chronic
inflammatory diseases.
Monday, October 17, 2011
Quick and Easy Coconut Milk Yogurt
I've revised my coconut milk yogurt recipe. It's much faster, much easier. No
heating, no cooling down, no watching temperatures. Because it's made with coconut milk it has no lactose and no
casein, so no 24-hour incubation needed. You do need a blender and a yogurt
maker or other way to keep the microorganisms thriving at their favorite
temperature for 8 hours. I use a crockpot plugged into a dimmer switch.
If you are doing strict SCD or GAPS you must make your own coconut milk. There are lots of good recipes on line for this. I actually use Aroy-D Coconut milk in 1 litre TetraPaks, which has won awards (I know...). It lists only coconuts and water as ingredients, and as far as I know, the TetraPak packaging contains no BPA, which canned coconut milk (like all other canned foods) does contain.
Dates are added to provide food (fructose) for the microorganisms that turn milk into yogurt (Lactobacillus, Streptococcus, etc). Dates are said to be very digestible, but if you prefer, you can replace the dates with 1 Tablespoon of raw honey.
The unflavored gelatin sets the yogurt to a soft gel as it cools. One pack of gelatin usually sets 2 cups of liquid to the bouncy "Jell-O" consistency we all know. Here we're doing over 4 cups of liquid, so it won't be as firm as Jell-O, but of a gentle consistency that blends in a heavenly way with the coconut milk's creaminess. Gelatin is also very soothing for the digestive system.
Keep refrigerated, like any yogurt. Should keep well for at least a week but in my house it's gone within about a day, so it's a good thing it's quick and easy to make again!
COCONUT MILK YOGURT
Ingredients:
4 cups coconut milk , at room temperature or up to 42 C
1 package yogurt starter or the dose for 1 quart milk
1 package unflavored gelatin (1 scant Tablespoon) or 1 1/2 Tablespoons unflavored Vegan Jel
5 raw dates, pitted
Directions:
1. Plug in your yogurt maker to warm it up. Place all the ingredients near your blender.
2. Pour the coconut milk into the blender jar (use the jar measures to get the right amount if using canned milk). Start the blender on a low speed, take off the whole lid, and sprinkle the unflavored gelatin and the yogurt starter into the middle of the swirling milk. Turn off blender, add dates, put the lid on, and process on high for 1 minute, until dates are liquefied. Pour into yogurt maker and follow your usual yogurt-making steps. Incubate 6 to 8 hours.
3. After about 6 hours, the yogurt will still be liquid and the cream will have risen to the top. No worries! Mix well and taste the yogurt to see if you prefer to let it ferment longer. If it's got that great yogurt taste, put the lid on the container and refrigerate. After cooling 1 to 2 hours (depends on your container), the gelatin will be starting to set, and it will be starting to separate again. Mix again (add 1 tsp vanilla if desired). Cool 2 to 3 more hours before serving.
If you are doing strict SCD or GAPS you must make your own coconut milk. There are lots of good recipes on line for this. I actually use Aroy-D Coconut milk in 1 litre TetraPaks, which has won awards (I know...). It lists only coconuts and water as ingredients, and as far as I know, the TetraPak packaging contains no BPA, which canned coconut milk (like all other canned foods) does contain.
Dates are added to provide food (fructose) for the microorganisms that turn milk into yogurt (Lactobacillus, Streptococcus, etc). Dates are said to be very digestible, but if you prefer, you can replace the dates with 1 Tablespoon of raw honey.
The unflavored gelatin sets the yogurt to a soft gel as it cools. One pack of gelatin usually sets 2 cups of liquid to the bouncy "Jell-O" consistency we all know. Here we're doing over 4 cups of liquid, so it won't be as firm as Jell-O, but of a gentle consistency that blends in a heavenly way with the coconut milk's creaminess. Gelatin is also very soothing for the digestive system.
Keep refrigerated, like any yogurt. Should keep well for at least a week but in my house it's gone within about a day, so it's a good thing it's quick and easy to make again!
COCONUT MILK YOGURT
Ingredients:
4 cups coconut milk , at room temperature or up to 42 C
1 package yogurt starter or the dose for 1 quart milk
1 package unflavored gelatin (1 scant Tablespoon) or 1 1/2 Tablespoons unflavored Vegan Jel
5 raw dates, pitted
Directions:
1. Plug in your yogurt maker to warm it up. Place all the ingredients near your blender.
2. Pour the coconut milk into the blender jar (use the jar measures to get the right amount if using canned milk). Start the blender on a low speed, take off the whole lid, and sprinkle the unflavored gelatin and the yogurt starter into the middle of the swirling milk. Turn off blender, add dates, put the lid on, and process on high for 1 minute, until dates are liquefied. Pour into yogurt maker and follow your usual yogurt-making steps. Incubate 6 to 8 hours.
3. After about 6 hours, the yogurt will still be liquid and the cream will have risen to the top. No worries! Mix well and taste the yogurt to see if you prefer to let it ferment longer. If it's got that great yogurt taste, put the lid on the container and refrigerate. After cooling 1 to 2 hours (depends on your container), the gelatin will be starting to set, and it will be starting to separate again. Mix again (add 1 tsp vanilla if desired). Cool 2 to 3 more hours before serving.
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Almond Milk Recipe
RECIPE:
Ingredients:
1 cup raw natural almonds
filtered water or tap water if you normally drink it
vanilla extract optional
almond extract optional
1/4 cup coconut milk optional
Soak almonds for at least 2 hours. I find that's the minimum to get the nuts to jump out of their skins. Some recipes call for soaking 12 to 24 hours, but I find that the taste gets more bitter with a prolonged soaking. I like soaking about 6 hours. Rinse several times thoroughly with good water.
"Blanch" the almonds, that is, remove the toxin-laden skins by squeezing the nut between your thumb and index finger, The nut inside will pop right out! I admit it takes a few minutes, you can do it while listening to an audiobook for example, anyway it gives you an excuse to sit down for a few minutes. You have to keep the almonds wet because the skin dries fast and sticks firmly to the nut when dry. Frankly, some pop right out, some you have to peel.
Put the almonds in a blender with 2 1/2 cups water (room temperature). Blend on high for one minute. In a Vitamix, about 30 seconds is plenty.
Pour the milk into a strainer lined with a juicing cloth. Put another 1/2 cup water in the blender jar, swish around to rinse out ALL the almond foam and add to the almond mixture in the strainer. That's a total of 3 cups water for 1 cup almond milk. Let the milk drip out for 15 to 30 minutes, then press out by hand (see my first post on how to do this) or in a press.
Add vanilla and almond extracts to taste, if desired. I use 1/2 teaspoon of each, if at all. I prefer to add 1/4 cup of coconut milk, which removes the dry edge that raw almond milk tends to have, and adds creaminess and sweetness. See my last post on Mixed Nuts Milk for how I arrived at this formula.
This makes a pretty thick milk, no guars, gums or xanthan anything needed. It keeps about 3 days in the refrigerator, but in my house it's gone within 24 hours. So I set my cup of almonds to soak every morning and some evenings too.
Ingredients:
1 cup raw natural almonds
filtered water or tap water if you normally drink it
vanilla extract optional
almond extract optional
1/4 cup coconut milk optional
Soak almonds for at least 2 hours. I find that's the minimum to get the nuts to jump out of their skins. Some recipes call for soaking 12 to 24 hours, but I find that the taste gets more bitter with a prolonged soaking. I like soaking about 6 hours. Rinse several times thoroughly with good water.
"Blanch" the almonds, that is, remove the toxin-laden skins by squeezing the nut between your thumb and index finger, The nut inside will pop right out! I admit it takes a few minutes, you can do it while listening to an audiobook for example, anyway it gives you an excuse to sit down for a few minutes. You have to keep the almonds wet because the skin dries fast and sticks firmly to the nut when dry. Frankly, some pop right out, some you have to peel.
Put the almonds in a blender with 2 1/2 cups water (room temperature). Blend on high for one minute. In a Vitamix, about 30 seconds is plenty.
Pour the milk into a strainer lined with a juicing cloth. Put another 1/2 cup water in the blender jar, swish around to rinse out ALL the almond foam and add to the almond mixture in the strainer. That's a total of 3 cups water for 1 cup almond milk. Let the milk drip out for 15 to 30 minutes, then press out by hand (see my first post on how to do this) or in a press.
Add vanilla and almond extracts to taste, if desired. I use 1/2 teaspoon of each, if at all. I prefer to add 1/4 cup of coconut milk, which removes the dry edge that raw almond milk tends to have, and adds creaminess and sweetness. See my last post on Mixed Nuts Milk for how I arrived at this formula.
This makes a pretty thick milk, no guars, gums or xanthan anything needed. It keeps about 3 days in the refrigerator, but in my house it's gone within 24 hours. So I set my cup of almonds to soak every morning and some evenings too.
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