Almond Milk Recipe And Information

The weather is getting warmer and Almond milk is on my mind. My brother was asking how to make it and it reminded me that I had not made it since last summer.

Take 1 cup of raw Almonds and put them in a bowl or large glass. Add 2 cups of water and let them soak for at least 8 hours. You can soak for longer. I try to change the water every 12-14 hours if I am not ready to make the milk yet. The skin does peel off better when the nuts have soaked for at least two days. If you want to use naked nuts for the milk.

When ready to make the milk, drain the water and put the nuts into a blender. You can hand peel the skin off of all the nuts if you like, then place into the blender to. If you have the time. The milk is much better that way. But, if you do not have the time. Skin on is still good.

So, you have your soaked nuts in the blender. Add 2 cups of water and blend well.

Get a pitcher out and a nut milk strainer bag. Mine is a paint strainer bag from the Home Depot (much cheaper than buying a quoted nut milk strainer bag). They come in a pack of 2. I think they are five gallon strainer bags. They work great. Put the nut milk bag into the pitcher and let the top part hang over the edges. You can add 1-2 more cups of water to strain with the mix if you like. To give you more milk.

Pour the blended nuts into the nut milk bag in the pitcher. Now pull out the bag half way, twist lightly and be gentle to slowly squeeze out as much liquid that you can. When finished, you can put the nut pulp into the compost, trash or freeze it for baking. 1/4 cup Almond nut pulp replacing some of the other flour, into any bread or baked goods makes the bread more moist and flavorful. Plus added fiber.

You can drink your Almond milk as is or you can add some sweet of choice, to taste. You can throw in a few pitted dates into the nut blending process and strain out the sweet with the nut milk. I like 2 large pitted dates for that.

If your blender is big enough you can double the recipe or just blend and pour in 2 batches. So that you have more Almond milk. It goes quick.

Here is a picture of Almond nut milk. This batch had skin off the nuts. Today, I made skin on batch to compare taste. Skin off has a thicker, creamier flavor and texture. Skin on has a light, earthy flavor and texture. Reminds me of the difference between eating white bread and wheat. That is the best I can describe it. Try for yourself to know how both taste and feel in your mouth. The skinned pulp is so good, I snack on it frozen. It reminds me of a nutty ice cream.

Taco Seasoning Mix Recipe

This is very versitile. Great way to make spicy ground hamburger for Taco's, Burrito's, Tostada's, Inchilada's, and loaded Nacho's.

Ingredients:

1/4 cup dried onion powder or dried minced onion
1/4 cup chili powder
2-3 T. salt ( If watching your salt use 2 T. If not, 3 T. is good)
4 tsp. cornstarch
1 T. garlic powder or dried minced garlic
1 T. cumin
1 T. crushed red pepper flakes

Mix together in a small bowl. Place in a glass container with lid.

 Add 2 T. Taco Seasoning mix and 1/2 cup of water to  1 lb. browned and drained hamburger or other cooked ground meat. Bring to a boil and then lower heat and simmer for about 10 minutes.

I often only use 1/2 lb. of hamburger and add 1 T. mix with 1/4 cup of water to cooked meat and finish like for the one lb.

Gardening & Learning From Trial And Error

These are my garden boxes. They have been very productive. Though getting to this point can be a long and uncertain path. I am not an expert gardener. Every thing I do is pretty much trial and much error.

As I collect on all my hard work. It can easily be forgotten the labor that was involved to make such great produce.

The weather has been so warm and beautiful. That I began sprouting seeds indoors.

Everything sprouted great. I even bought my Tomatoes seeds online this year at www.PennysTomatoes.com and every seed planted has sprouted. My downfall was planting to early before my plants were stronger. Yesterday we had 20-25 mph winds. and wiped out many new sprouts in my garden including many tomato plants.

But, a few survived.

I have placed some fresh veggie pulp from juicing around them.

This one is not happy, but time will tell. I am sprouting more Penny tomatoes and will try to be more pro-active about letting them grow more before I plant them.

I have many sprouts and will continue to re-fill spots that are now empty in my garden. I was even thinking of growing a Cayenne plant.  Penny's husband Joe at www.pepperjoe.com sells  pepper seeds. I may check that out.

This year, I bought onions to grow in my garden. These are what I have not planted yet. I read that if you plant onion it helps with garden pests. In particular the worms that like my squash. We will see.  I eat onion in many recipes. So nothing will go to waste.

I had many new lemon cucumber and cantaloupe sprouts kill over to. It seems like a struggle to keep plants alive in the beginning and in the heat of the summer. It is worth the hard work when you get real food from your back yard and many times more food than you can eat. I write this to keep inspiring myself and others. Do not give up. Keep trying. Success or fail, try, try again.

Update:

Garden up and running with lots of Tomato plants. All the little ones lived and I planted more.

Tomatoes growing.

Very happy with Penny's Tomato seeds.

Awesome Cherokee Tomato.

Love the the Onions I grew.