Almonds Almonds, Almonds for me. Almonds Almonds make me happy

Michael Clease gets a little eczema. Recently we bought a book called the Healthy Skin diet, it contains advice for lots of different skin conditions and one thing they mentioned was dairy food being an eczema trigger. Actually loads of the things that Michael Clease likes are bad for it: dairy, chocolate, bacon, cheese, red meats and alcohol!!!
Over the last few months we have been trying to reduce his intake of them rather than completely cutting them out and he has noticed the difference.

We both tend to have at least one coffee a day and Michael Clease has been having soy milk in that. The health experts seem to be a little undecided about soy products at the moment. One thing does seem clear though is that with its popularity increasing more soy trees are needing to be planted and so rainforests are being destroyed to make room. I'm a believer in mixing thing up, I don't think Michael Clease should feel too guilty for having soy milk in one coffee a day and I don't think he should panic about his eczema when he has a little milk but still I decided to looked into alternatives.

Rice milk is on the supermarket shelves with the soy milk but i've heard that that contains very few nutrients. Another one I spotted was almond milk so we gave that a go and its not so bad. I had a browse online and it seems loads of people make their own and its really simple.

I've made it a few times now and its really good. The only thing is you probably should only keep it for about 4 days so you have to be organised if you want it on your breakfast every day!
Heres my receipe, its probably not the most professional or maybe even the nicest but I like it :)

• Take around two small handfulls of raw almonds
• Put them in a clear jar, cover with water and a lid and leave on the window sill for a day or two
• Empty the water, put the almonds in a blender and add about 1 cup of water
• Blend for a good few minutes. You should be able to judge the consistency, you want it a little thicker than milk, more creamy. Add more water if its too thick.
• Put a strainer over a bowl and more the almond/water combo in
• You should be able to leave it for 10minutes and a lot of the water will drain through. Then grab a spoon and smoosh (technical term!) it through the strainer. You can buy almond milk bags to use instead of strainers, i think it gives you a smoother finish but I'm not too fussed.
• Ta da you should have a bowl of beautiful almond milk. 

 I have seen people add dates and/or cinnamon to theirs, I guess this depends on what you will be using your almond milk for. I usually add ours to our porridge and that already has dates in so I don't worry. Dates are great through for some healthy sweetness.

You'll have all the almond pulp left over. I mix mine into our porridge but I did see one recipe where they add some chocolate chips and honey and ate it as a dessert!
By the way I have spotted the irony of putting the almond milk and almond pulp back together in the porridge, you kinda think why not just put almonds and water in your porridge but I promise it give the porridge a great creaminess this way!!

The final result, sorry for the poor quality and lack of 'step by step' shots!

Give it a go and let me know what you think.
xx