Wonderful World of Almonds

My family and I have decided to change up our eating habits for a while. We're going to take on a paleo-inspired lifestyle! I love that we're all doing this together, because now I can whip up weird concoctions and they won't give me the "...but why?" look for being so unnecessarily healthy and homemade. So our diet consists of fruits, veggies, meats, seafood, nuts, and seeds. No dairy, no grains. This is going to be fun!! I'm basing a lot of our approach off of the book, "It Starts With Food", which is all about the Whole30 diet, which is pretty much just a paleo diet. Mom just watched "Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead", a documentary about a guy who juiced for 60 days and lost heaps of weight and became much healthier... so we bought a juicer and that will be in the diet as well! Goody gumdrops I love new starts :)

So I've been raging through all of these amazing food blogs, pulling and prying ideas and thoughts on the whole thing. I'm starting with almonds.

Almonds are incredible! So many uses from one batch of raw almonds!
I am more grateful than ever that I got a food processor for Christmas. My life has changed.

Almond Butter

1) Simply throw almonds (raw, smoked, salted, roasted, whatever) in the food processor and blend until smooth.

2) That's it, really.


Almond Milk

1) Blanch about 2 cups of raw almonds overnight. That means you toss them into a big bowl of water (enough to cover them) and set in on the counter until morning. 

2) The next day, you can peel the skins off of the almonds really easily. It's actually very satisfying to simply pinch the almond and squeeze out the inner almond into a fresh bowl. Wee!

3) Save your skins. Set them out on a paper towel to dry.

4) In a food processor or blender, toss in a cup of skinless almonds with 2 cups water (purified, preferably) with a teaspoon of vanilla extract (if you please). Blend until smooth.

5) Strain it over your pitcher using a mesh strainer or cheese cloth. Save your tiny-crushed almonds in a separate bowl!

6) There you have it! Delicious almond milk, all natural. Don't be surprised: it will be grainy still. It's not that store-bought stuff!


**EDIT!!... this recipe tastes so much better... throw in a cup of your blanched almonds (skin on) with 2 cups filtered water. Add a Tbsp of creamed coconut, a tsp. of vanilla, maybe even a bit of agave, a tsp of cinnamon, and a pinch of salt. Mix in the blender. Pour over a cheesecloth to strain. So creamy and sweet and delicious!
Almond Paste

1) In case you're not a huge baker, almond paste is wonderful to use when making certain treats like almond-butter cookies and such. 

2) Pour the leftover almond pieces from making your almond milk, back into the food processor to blend it all even tinier for more of a paste. 

3) Seal that into a mason jar for future uses.

Almond Skin Meal

1) Once the skins have dried, toss them in the processor to blend into a fine grain.

2) The skins are wonderfully nutritious (fiber, prebiotics, antioxidants). Stir them into oatmeal, baking recipes or in your yogurt. Yum!

Enjoy!!