When you realise you are lactose intolerant, life kind of goes for a toss. Milk, yoghurt, cheese, butter, cream all the good things need to be tossed out of your life…and then realisation strikes! You are going to starve. No desserts. No cuppa morning tea. No pizza. OMG! this can’t be happening to me. God, why me!

Then you realise there are millions of people out there who could be just as harassed as you are, what are they doing. Soya milk has been ruled out by my doctors, what else, there has to be something else. And you stumble upon the recipe for almond milk. It’s a Eureka moment. What’s more when you realise it costs less than 1/5th the price you pay for a ready-made carton of Almond Milk, you almost forget you are lactose intolerant and go hit the yummy chocolates :(. Nope those are off the list too. The recipe has been inspired by this one, which has been adapted from The Plantpower Way by Rich Roll and Julie Piatt.

IMPORTANT:

• Home made almond milk needs to be refrigerated.
• It has a shelf life of only 2 days.
• You can add sugar to sweeten your almond milk
• You can even flavour your almond milk with vanilla or another essence of your choice.
• Almond milk cannot be heated.
• You can use the same recipe to make cashew milk.

Time taken: 9 hours  

Soaking time: 8 hours

Preparation time: 20 minutes

Makes: 750 ml

Skill level: Basic

Equipment Needed: Blender, muslin cloth, sieve

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup almonds
• 4.5 cups water
• 7-8 Kimia dates
• Method:

Method:

1. Soak the almonds in 1/2 a cup of water for about 8 hours.

2. Remove from the water and add 2 cups of fresh water. Add the dates. Blend for about 10 minutes till the almond and water form a milky liquid.

3. Sieve it through a muslin cloth. Pour the liquid in a glass bottle and cool it.

4. The sieve would have caught a fair amount of almonds and dates that haven’t got blended as yet add them back to the blender almond with 2 more glass of water and blend it further for another 10 minutes. In case you aren’t going to consume 4 cups of almond milk in 2 days, the coarsely ground almonds can be refrigerated till needed. or used in a salad or soup.

5. Sieve again. This time your sieve will be clean and you have 750 ml of sugar-free almond milk.