Make Your Own Almond Milk (It's Really Easy)

OK, when we figured out my husband's corn allergy this summer, and realized that the almond milk we buy had corn-derived ingredients in it (Almond Breeze Unsweetened, if you're curious) he suggested we make it. I was immediately against it. What a pain in the ass.

Boy was I wrong.

It's really easy, and I actually like how this stuff tastes, which I can't say that I did for the Almond Breeze. Why bother? Yes, we also buy corn free soymilk (WestSoy Unsweetened, Trader Joe's Unsweetened, and Eden Soy Extra Unsweetened are nothing but soybeans and water)- but baking with soymilk is pretty bad. Baked goods have this weird, smooth texture that I don't like. Baking with almond milk is (to me) just like baking with regular milk- baked goods turn out fluffy and delicious.

You do have to plan ahead a little, but we go through this stuff regularly enough that I seem to always have a cup of almonds soaking.

Ingredients:
1 cup raw (non-salted) almonds, soaked from anywhere from 4 hours to several days
3 cups water
1 T honey
your blender
a nut milk straining bag

Making Almond Milk- Soaked Almonds, a photo by zombie amelia on Flickr. 

Yes, I know that ideally, you should only soak your almonds from 4-8 hours, but I've not noticed any difference in the finished product if I soak them longer. You just get weird white fatty stuff soaking in your water. I soak the almonds at the ratio of 1 cup almonds to 2 cups water, and just set it out in a Pyrex glass measuring container on the counter and leave it there.

Once your almonds are soaked, strain them (discard the soaking water) and rinse them off. Put in the blender with the water and the honey.

Making Almond Milk- Before Blending, a photo by zombie amelia on Flickr. 

Puree that stuff. For a minute or two.

Making Almond Milk- After Blending, a photo by zombie amelia on Flickr. 

Once you've pureed it for a few minutes, pour it into a container through your strainer bag. The strainer bag is really helpful. I tried it with a mesh colander and it was all over the place.

Making Almond Milk- Straining Bits, a photo by zombie amelia on Flickr. 

Remove the bag from the milk and squeeze the milk out of the bag, discard the almond bits.
This recipe makes about 3 cups of milk.

Honey Oat Bread (Dairy Free)

Dairy free, delicious, honey oatmeal bread :)

Adapted from Bakingdom's Soft Honey Oat Bread and made in my new bread maker. Why a bread maker? With all our food allergies, it's hard to buy a bread that both my husband and I can eat. Clasen's bread, from Middleton, Wisconsin, comes closest, even nicely labeling when they use cornmeal on the bottom of bread, but we like a softer, honey oat type bread than the one variety of bread of theirs we can both eat. So, I bought a bread maker. I love the bread maker. It's so easy.

All you have to do is put the ingredients in the bread maker in the correct order and turn it on.

The bread maker requires correct layers of ingredients: bottom is the liquids, then the dry ingredients, and then the yeast.

This is a 1.5 lb loaf of bread, I set my bread maker to medium crust darkness.

So, in order to make this delicious bread, you need (in order):

1 cup almond milk (room temperature, not right out of the fridge- you can warm it to about 75-90F)
1/4 cup water (lukewarm/warm temperature)
2 tablespoons melted Spectrum palm oil shortening
1/4 cup honey (the tangier, the better)
2 & 3/4 cups bread flour
1/4 cup whole wheat bread flour
3/4 cup oats
1 & 1/2 tsp salt
1 package Rize yeast (no corn ingredients) it's about 2 & 1/4 tsp

The yeast actually goes into a little indentation you create in the top of your dry ingredients, a little well to hold the yeast.

Finished loaf!, a photo by zombie amelia on Flickr.

You can also opt to drizzle honey on top of your loaf and sprinkle oats- this can be done when your bread maker tells you the last rise cycle is starting- this is when you get the option to remove the paddles and reshape the loaf, sometimes I do this, sometimes I don't.

Either way, the bread is soft and delicious.

Hotels and feathers

Why is it that the new "luxury trend" at hotels is down bedding and pillows? I stayed at the Marriott the other night while traveling, and had to call them to remove the down comforter and feather pillows from my bed. I don't think they changed the sheets, either, since I spent half the night not sleeping, but coughing, hacking, and sniffling.

It seems like an unwise practice since I know there are many people who have a feather allergy. Hotels? shape up! I don't think I'll be staying at a Marriott any time soon.

Mushroom Spinach Quiche (with goat's milk & cheese)

Another old post from Vox:

I happened to have a frozen pie crust (since I do NOT make my own pie crusts) and I simply stuck it in the oven for a few minutes while the oven was preheating it- got the crust doughy and defrosted, since the original recipe wanted me to make a crust from scratch and such.

So- here it is:
Mushroom Spinach Quiche (adapted from Moosewood)
9" pie crust (frozen and thawed works nicely)
1.5 cups low fat goat's milk
1.5 cups (ish) of goat cheddar and goat jack cheese, grated
4 eggs
3 T flour
small container (8 oz) of white mushrooms, sliced
1/4 of a large onion
handful or two of spinach, chopped
1-2 T olive oil
1 clove garlic, pressed or diced
salt, pepper, dill, paprika
Mince/chop onion and saute with garlic in olive oil until translucent. Add sliced mushrooms, saute more, then add chopped spinach. Cook until cooked.
Meanwhile, beat eggs, milk, flour and some salt and pepper and dill together until smooth. Grate cheese, sprinkle about half of the cheese in the bottom of the unbaked pie crust, then top with the mushroom mixture, then more cheese, then pour the egg mixture on top. Add the remaining cheese to the top and sprinkle with paprika.
Bake 40-45 minutes at 375F until center is solid when the quiche is jiggled.

This turned out quite tasty. And, cow's milk free!

If you care about such things, the entire quiche (made with my ingredients) is about 1620 calories, so if you're really hungry and want your servings to be a quarter of the quiche, that puts you at 405 calories per serving.

Dairy-free camping foods

I had a few of these things posted over on my old Vox blog, so I'm moving them over...

Several years ago, I made an extensive list of all the freeze dried camping foods that had no dairy in them (including tiny, chemical ingredients.) It occurred to me that perhaps other allergic people might be interested in this list, so, here it is:

Mountain House

• Pork Sausage Patties
• Rice & Chicken Single Serve Entrée
• Beef Stew Single Serve Entrée
• Chicken Teriyaki Pro Pak
• Corn
• Green Beans
• Green Peas
• Strawberry Fruit Snacks
• Mango Fruit Snacks
• Apple Fruit Snacks
• Banana Fruit Snacks

Backpackers Pantry

• Scrambled Eggs
• Scrambled Eggs w/ Baco bits
• Denver Omlette
• Applesauce
• Fruit Cocktail
• Strawberries
• Jose’s Chicken Mole
• Pad Thai
• Asian Curried Stir Fry
• Louisiana Red Beans and Rice
• Spicy Thai Peanut Sauce
• Thai Satay with Beef
• Sweet & Sour Chicken
• Chicken Saigon Noodles
• Kung Pao Chicken
• Jamaican BBQ Chicken
• Hawaiian Chicken
• Taos Black Bean
• Green Beans Almondine
• Peas and Carrots
• Sicilian Mixed Vegetables
• Hot Apple Cobbler
• Apple D’Lite

Natural High

• Black Beans and Rice, Caribbean Style
• Chicken and Broccoli
• Chicken Fajitas
• Chicken Teriyaki
• Corn Crunch
• Honey Lime Chicken
• Three Bean Chili

Richmoor

• Blueberry Cobbler
• Breakfast #2 Eggs with Imitation Bacon bits, Hash Brown Potatoes, and Orange Drink.
• Chicken and Rice
• Dinner #3 Turkey Supreme, Chicken Noodle Soup, Apples & Spice, Orange Drink
• Freeze-Dried Corn
• Freeze-Dried Green Beans
• Freeze-Dried Peas
• Green Beans
• Hash Brown Potatoes
• Hash Browns O'Brien
• Lunch #2 Peanut Butter and Grape Jelly, Pilot Biscuits, Pineapple, and Lemon-Lime Drink
• Lunch #3 Peanut butter & strawberry jelly, pilot biscuits, fruit leather, and fruit punch.
• Raspberry Cobbler
• Western Omelette

Mary Janes Outpost

• Organic Black Bean Corn Bread w/Honey
• Organic Chili Batter Bread
• Organic Corn Bread
• Organic Garlic Pesto Fry Bread
• Organic Griddle Cakes
• Organic Outrageous Outback Oatmeal
• Organic Brownies
• Organic Chocolate Chip Cookies
• Organic Scones w/Walnuts and Orange Peel
• Organic Ginger Sesame Pasta

Enjoy!