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.

Delicious No Chicken Broth Recipe

In trying to make matzo ball soup yesterday, I realized that my previous no chicken broth standby is on the "has corn" list, thus making it inedible for my husband. So, I attempted to make a "no chicken" broth and came upon this delicious recipe, which I think is pretty close to the Imagine brand that I was buying.

The trick was finding seasoned salt that had no weird corn based ingredients, and Penzy's won. Their Seasoned Salt is corn free.

I found this recipe on the http://www.myvegancookbook.com blog. Modified to removed the vegan butter.

• 1 Cup Onions, Chopped
• 1 Cup Celery, Chopped
• 2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
• 5 Cups Water
• 2 Teaspoons Onion Powder
• 1 Teaspoon Garlic Powder
• 1 Teaspoon Seasoned Salt
• 1/2 Teaspoon Poultry Seasoning
• 2 Tablespoons Soy Sauce (Kikkoman is corn free, no alcohol.)

In a large stock pot, simmer the onions and celery with the olive oil on medium-low heat until vegetables are soft. Add the onion and garlic powder, seasoned salt, poultry seasoning and soy sauce and saute for another minute.

Add water and let simmer on medium-low for 30 minutes. Strain broth and discard vegetable pulp.

Makes 4 cups.

It also makes a great sick day veggie soup/broth if you don't strain the veggie pulp.