So, almond milk is the greatest thing ever. I eat it in all my, I put it in all my smoothies.
Cereal when have it.
I drink it straight from the carton.
But I'm here with Carolyne at the Vitamix store in Cleveland, and I'm about to find
out that there's something better than than almond milk.
It's homemade almond milk. And I'll tell you why I love to make my own. It's creamy, it's
luscious, and most importantly, it's bursting with almond flavor.
You can't buy it in a store.
-Bursting, yeah. -Bursting!
-The store-bought does not burst! -It doesn't even compare.
-Great. -No.
[music]
-So, um. -So what I did here was I just bought raw
almonds.
You want to make sure they're raw, not roasted.
And I like to soak them overnight. I would say at least eight hours, but I like to do
twelve hours.
-Okay. -The reason you want to soak them is because
they're going to be less acidic, more digestible, and most importantly, you want that creaminess.
The longer you soak them, the creamier your almond milk is going to be.
Then all we did was strained them, rinsed them with some cool water, and now we have
our soaked almonds.
You can see that they're very plump, they're big, they're ready to go.
-Beautiful! -So, to the Vitamix,
it usually is about one cup of almonds to three cups of water. That's gonna give you
maybe like a skim milk.
-If you like it a little bit thicker, just cut back on the water.
-Okay
So, and I like to be generous. I'm pretty liberal with, I mean, if you want to use a
measuring cup and measure it out, fine.
You have the measuring cup on the side of the Vitamix, but I like to do maybe a heaping
cup.
And then we'll just fill it with three cups of water.
-And that's it. -That's it?
-That's it. -No sweetener, no nothing?
Nothing. So you can sweetened it. I like to make a variety of different flavors. I've
been known to make a strawberry banana, chocolate cinnamon, I've done a blueberry, a raspberry.
But the key is this: I like to blend my almond milk first, strain it, clean out the container,
put that back in there, then flavor it, sweeten it with agave, coconut nectar, raw dates,
whatever you want because that pulp is so valuable. I like to take it, you never want
to throw it away, you spent good money on those almonds.
-Love the pulp. -I know!
-Any kind of pulp! -Exactly.
I like to dehydrate it and then put it back in the Vitamix and make almond flour.
You can put it in a turkey meatloaf, you can put it in pancakes, bran muffins, all sorts
of things.
-Wow. -So never throw your pulp away.
-Save the pulp. -And that's why I like to flavor second.
-Okay. -So that my pulp is pure.
So with the Vitamix here, we're just going to blend this on high for about 45 seconds
to a minute.
Really we're just trying to break all those almonds down, extract that flavor, and get
a really nice smooth, creamy mixture here.
I'll turn my Vitamix on, ramp it up to ten and place it into high.
Let's do it!
[blending]
And so it's going to get it pretty liquified, but we still need the strainer.
Right, you don't have to strain it if you don't want to. Most people don't like that
texture, and that grit.
It's going to get it pretty fine, but there's still going to be some there.
And and it will be much more caloric with all that pulp in there so most people will want to strain it out.
Okay, save the calories.
So, essentially, we have our almond milk. But we're going to strain it. And I'm going
to put you to work here.
-Yes! -Because you're just standing there doing
nothing
while I'm doing all the work.
Well, I didn't want to interrupt your flow. You had such a good thing going.
So, I'm just going to pour the almond milk through the filtration bag and just squeeze
that out for me.
-Squeeze? -Yep, just take it.
And I love these filtration bags. A lot of people have cheese cloths. I have cheese cloths.
But what I like about these is that they're reusable. I throw it right in my washing machine
with all my kitchen towels. It's that one time you go to get that cheese cloth and you
ran out of it because you forgot to buy it, it's a pain, gotta go to the store again.
-So these are super-- go to town! -Okay.
-Squeeze that. -Okay.
-It's a little warm. -Yeah.
So if you're going to drink it right away, I do have ice on standby.
Now, you could, if you're gonna, like.
It's white, I guess if it spills it doesn't matter.
-Yeah. It's part of the fun.
If you're going to use this right away, for instance, why would you want to do this yourself.
If you're making almond milk just to put into a smoothie, do you want to go through all
this?
-I probably wouldn't. -Right.
You know, time is valuable. I would probably soak your almonds, or leave them raw, whatever
you want to do.
If you soak them it will be a little bit creamier, you might get less pulp in the smoothie.
But I would just put water in there and maybe a fourth of a cup of raw almonds soaked or
unsoaked and it kinda makes its own almond milk in the Vitamix.
To go through all this then put a cup of almond milk, why?
-Right. -I would do this if I was going to
have this as an after workout boost.
Maybe you want on a long run. Great source of protein. You want that chocolate cinnamon
almond milk when you get back.
Maybe you're going to put protein powder in there. It's a vanilla protein powder.
You flavored it with honey and cinnamon. You got some flavor profiles going in there.
If you're going to do a chia seed overnight oats bowl, maybe you want to make your own
almond milk, it's going to be creamy, luscious, flavorful, that sort of thing.
-Okay, can we show the pulp? -Absolutely.
-The almond pulp! -Yeah, let's get in there.
So this is the pulp. And so I just lay it out. If you have a dehydrator, it works great.
You can eat it. It's good.
I actually make raw vegan cookies. You can take cookies, peanut butter, cacao, this,
dates, it works great.
So there's tons of recipes. You may have some on your website. Or you can find them online.
-Do you ever eat it raw like this? -I don't.
-You don't want to. -You could. It's really. I like to enhance
it into other dishes.
-Great. -So, really now, the most important thing
is the taste test.
Now, you can, like I said, rinse out your container, put that back in, put a date in
there, cinnamon, cacao, fresh fruit, whatever you want to flavor it with.
If you're going to pour this right on cereal, you could put ice in there while you're blending
it to cool it down.
For you, I'm just going to, kind of, put it on ice here.
-Like Patron! -Exactly.
So I'm making a weird face because the pulp is so dry. Like, I can't even. My mouth is,
like, glued shut.
Imagine if you had that pulp in there, with there, you'd still have some of that grit.
And that's why most people like to strain it.
So I want you do to a side-by-side comparison because really it's all about flavor and taste.
So this is a store-bought almond milk. You'll notice it's very thin. The color is a bit
different. And it's kind of like a watered down mixture.
The homemade almond milk is very thick, luscious, creamy, and as I stated before. It's bursting
with almond flavor.
And you really just can't beat it.
So, try the store-bought first. And then move on to the homemade.
-You wouldn't normally have to drink it over ice.
-Absolutely not.
-But it's okay to. -Most people like it chilled. You certainly
don't have to.
-Right. But if you keep it in the fridge. -Yeah.
So I would make this, store it in the refrigerator.
Usually, I mean, you can keep it for up to a week. As far as nutrition goes, you have
that two to four day range.
But it's still going to be good. You might have to shake it up. It could separate a bit.
But, it's still good.
Okay, I'm going to try it.
-Which one first? -That one first. That's the store-bought.
It's what most people are used to.
Okay, I'm very familiar with this. Um, sometimes I just, kind of, open up the fridge and just
drink straight from the carton.
It's very light, it has a little bit of an essence of almond. But it kind of just is.
It tastes like what I think almond milk tastes like.
Right. Now try almond milk.
Can I have a little more? I'm a kinda thirsty.
Sure! But you're going to want to down that one. So don't think too much.
Okay. It's like wine.
Oh, it's so different. It's not even the same thing. It tastes like.
It definitely doesn't taste like a product that came from a carton.
Are you getting hit with a lot more almond?
And it's much more luscious and thick on the palate.
It's definitely luscious and thick. And I can kind of taste the inside of the almonds.
Whereas with this one it's just kind of like the white stuff that comes in the carton that
I can put in my smoothies.
So how of much of this can you make? We made, what, three cups?
We made about three or four cups. It really depends on how much water you add to it, but
if you add about three cups of water you're gonna get that three or four cup once you
strain it out.
So it's really, like, flavorful and sweet without adding anything. So I can see how
adding some of the things like you said like making a strawberry version.
-Right. -Or maybe, like, a chocolate version.
-It would be mind-blowing. -It's like an indulgence, yeah.
So, excuse me, how does this compare from a nutritional standpoint?
Well, a lot of the almond milk that you buy at the store has been pasteurized. So it's
usually been heated over 140 degrees. So it's lost a lot of its nutritional factor. The
amino acids, that kind of thing. And it also has all kinds of stabilizers in it so it can
stay on the shelf.
Here, you're keeping all that in tact and it's basically a raw product. So you're getting
all that good nutrition.
I can taste the nutrition. Really. It's wonderful.
If I was to do this, I think I would make two batches. And store it, it would probably
last me...
Yeah, I've been known to put two cups in there and six cups of water.
What else do we need to know. This is really good and I will be trying this.
I don't know, like you say, that it's going to totally replace my almond milk consumption.
-Right. -I think there will be sometimes
I'll just use the trick of adding almonds into my smoothie and getting, like, a fake
almond milk.
I might also get a carton at the store. But, if I'm really feeling righteous and want a
real nutritious, delicious almond milk, I would go with this.
And maximum health benefits.
-Yeah. -Yeah.
And just kind of, it's an application to whatever you're making. So like I said, I wouldn't
necessarily make it for a smoothie. But if I was highlighting it in a dish, maybe you're
going to make a vegan ice cream in your Vitamix, you could easily flavor this and freeze it.
If I was going to put it in the overnight oats bowl. Or if I was going to pour right
on top of my granola or something I'd want that maximum flavor.
I like it. Aright, homemade almond milk.
-If you're not making it now. -Try it.
It's cool. Try it. Life is NOYOKE.
Aright.
[beep]
-Is it Salon? Solon. -Solon. Yeah. You'll want to say Cleveland.
[beep]
Okay, well let's try to get it in one take. Because I'm hungry.