How to make Almond Milk

Generally I just buy nut milk from the grocery store but thought I would give making my own a try.It’s actually quite easy and it tastes wayyyy better then the stuff from the grocery store. I recently picked up a nut milk bag, and had  grand plans of waking up before work and making nut milk. I put the almonds to soak on Thursday night, I woke up on Friday morning but the desire to sleep in a bit longer resulted in no nut milk. 
Then Saturday morning came and really I just wanted to sleep in.. and then we had to rush off to go racing on Signal 8, a Ker 40 sailing boat. The racing ended up being canceled due to no wind, but we ended up having a nice swim and then the wind came in and we had a nice little sail around. So on Sunday morning it was time the almonds had been soaked long enough! I woke up early when Ollie went sailing and started on the nut milk.  Since it was pouring outside, I decided to make a  Gluten/Dairy Free Chocolate Almond Meal Cake, with the left over almond meal. Both these recipes are super easy to make, especially the cake: mix dry ingredients together, mix wet ingredients and mix together and bake!

Almond Milk 
Ingredients 
1 cup almonds
2 cups water (I used bottled mineral) + additional water for soaking
optional maple syrup or honey

1. Soak almonds overnight, or longer....

2. Rinse almonds in a sieve
3. Place almonds in blender, add 1 cup off water and blend for 1 minute, add remaining water and blend for an additional minute. (I used a hand blender which worked fine)

4. Place nut milk bag over bowl or jug, pour almond mixture into bag. Squeeze all liquid from bag leaving the almond meal in bag.
5. And its finished! Almond milk can be kept refrigerated for 2-3 days.

Additional: Maple syrup or honey can be added if you desire sweeter milk.
Almond Meal:
Remove almond meal from bag, make chocolate cake or spread on baking tray and dry at a low heat in oven for later use.