I owe a big thanks to Jessie for her fabulous guest post. I know that many of you were intrigued, and I hope you pick up a copy of Nourishing Traditions and find out for yourself what it’s all about. I will post about many of the topics she touched on in the near future, so stay tuned for more information.

For now, a quick tutorial that I wish I would have known about years ago.

If you’ve been buying almond milk at the store, stop it right now. It is so easy to make on your own, and will save you lots of cash, too. My husband went through a phase of drinking almond milk a lot, but it kind of died out as he realized how much that little carton was costing us! Now, I can make my own whenever we want some or I need it for a recipe. We don’t drink it in place of cow’s milk, but I use it on hot cereal, or in smoothies.

It really is simple, here are the steps:

1. Soak 1 cup of almonds in some water (to cover) and a little bit of sea salt over night.

2. Drain and rinse the almonds well.

3. Place almonds into a blender with 4 cups of fresh water.

5. Place a piece of cheesecloth (nut milk bag, muslin, etc.) over a bowl and pour the almond mixture into it.

6. Milk the pulp — squeeze every last drop that you can out of the cheesecloth (this will be messy, but very satisfying).

7. Store the almond milk in a glass quart jar in the fridge for up to two days. The pulp can be used in other recipes, like this one. I haven’t tried it yet, but it’s on my list!

Optional: add vanilla, dates, honey, etc. to the milk while it’s blending, if you want it to have a sweet flavor. I leave mine plain to cook/bake with.

See? Easy. The next time you pick up that carton of almond milk in your grocery store, remember how simple it is to make it yourself. You can customize it to your taste, and know that there aren’t any extra additives.