Almond milk is something that I’ve been wanting to make for a long time, but it wasn’t until I took an online wholefood course that I finally got up the courage to try it. It is actually quite easy to make, only takes a few minutes and tastes great, especially in smoothies, hot chocolate and hot chai tea.

There is a generous amount of almond meal left over after making the milk and this almond meal makes baked goods taste moist and fabulous (at a fraction of the cost of store bought almond meal). I have baked with it as it is once the milk is extracted, and I have dried it in the oven – both work fine although as there is more moisture in the un-dried meal, so you may need to adjust your baking recipes slightly.

Method

1. Place almonds in a bowl to soak over night. In the morning, add the dates and let them soak for 10 minutes or so until soft (you can soak these overnight as well if you like – they look absolutely terrible in the morning but are quite edible).
2. Strain almonds and rinse. Place almonds in a blender with the dates and 4 cups of water and blend on high for a few minutes until liquid and the almonds have been ground to meal. Depending on your blender, it may need a motor rest or two during blending.
3. Place a strainer over your bowl and a clean tea towel or nut bag in the strainer (cheesecloth isn’t fine or strong enough unless you double or triple fold it). Draw up the sides of the cloth and then gently twist and squeeze the milk into the bowl. Continue to do this until you have the milk separated from the meal (you may find it easier to do this in batches). The milk can be refrigerated for 2 – 3 days, it will need a bit of a shake before drinking as there is some settling.
4. The meal can be used as is, refrigerated for a few days or frozen. You can also dry the meal. To do this, set your oven to it’s lowest temperature, spread the meal onto a tray and leave it to dry for a few hours (I dried it for about 5 hours). If your oven doesn’t do low, you can heat it slightly every half hour or so and then turn it off to keep the temperature low. Alternatively, if you have a dehydrator, you can use that.
5. If you prefer, you can run the dried almond meal through a coffee or spice grinder or blender for a few seconds to get a finer texture. Refrigerate or freeze meal.

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Encouraged by the wholefood workshop that I’m taking online, we’ve been having a lot of smoothies lately. We started off gently with some fruit smoothies I used to make years ago and progressively got more daring, adding things like homemade sunflower seed milk and kale.

This particular smoothie is tasty, dairy (and gluten) free and full of nutrition. You can add a teaspoon or so of natural peanut butter (which is what we did) for protein – it will change the flavour slightly.

How much honey you add will depend on your personal tastes and the sweetness of the banana and pineapple. Start with none and add it in as you like.

I use about half coconut milk to a quarter filtered water – you can use just coconut milk for a creamier texture.

You don’t have to add the kale (or alternatives like spinach or silverbeet). Kale is however packed full of Vitamin C and K and is rich in calcium, carotenoids and iron. Adding it to smoothies is an easy and tasty way of increasing raw foods in your diet (and your kids’ diet – the little fella loves these). Add just a leaf or so to start with and increase the amount to taste.

Method

1. Blend all ingredients until smooth. Serve immediately or chill for later (it will need a good shake if you drink it later).

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This punch is easy and yum. My mother used to make it when we were young and this year I made it for Christmas day. We don’t have a punch bowl, so I mixed this in a jug and left out the fruit so that it was pourable. The only problem was that I grabbed the soda water bottle instead of the lemonade bottle, so it was a little on the dry, not-so-sweet side. I didn’t mind it (soft drink (soda) is usually way too sweet for me), but it wasn’t sweet enough for the other non(grog)-drinkers. If you prefer your punch less on the sweet side, then substitute the lemonade for soda water.

Method

1. Combine and serve.

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Our corner of Queensland has a few common food crops, pineapple and ginger are just two of them. So what better combo for a refreshing summer drink.

Method

1. Process pineapple in a food processor in batches until a smooth puree
2. Place water, sugar and ginger in a large saucepan over low heat and stir until the sugar dissolves. Increase the heat to bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce and simmer for 5 minutes.
3. Add pineapple puree, bring back to the boil, then simmer for another 2 minutes or so.
4. Strain mixture into a clean bottle, discarding pulp and ginger. Press pulp with the back of a spoon to get all the juice out.
5. Chill.

This makes about 1 litre. Serve with water or soda water. This cordial isn’t as sweet as commercial cordials, so add a generous amount to the glass. I imagine that this would also be nice with a splash of white rum and a few ice cubes and soda water, maybe a few mint leaves!

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