Vanilla Almond Milk [easy as 1-2-3]

Recently my husband brought home 3 pounds of almonds...so what's a girl to do? Make many batches of almond milk..that's what she does! While for the most part, it may be cheaper to just buy almond milk already prepared and packaged, I must say that it was quite exciting and super easy to make my own. Here is what you will need to make approximately 32oz, which is the same size as one Blue Diamond Almond Milk containers:

Almond Milk
1 1/2 - 2C. Raw Almonds, soaked for at least 6 hours or overnight
1/2oz. Raisins or Chopped Dates, soaked for at least 6 hours or overnight
5C. Filtered Water
1/8 tsp. salt
2/4tsp. Pure Vanilla Extract or one Vanilla Bean
4-6tsp. Agave Nectar
Mesh Strainer
2 Large Bowls
Cheesecloth or any kind of thin fabric

Directions:
1. Place all of your almonds, raisins, and water into your blender and blend until there are no large almond pieces left(you will have small granules). Using your strainer, strain the almond milk into your bowl. At this point you can store your almond pulp in a sandwich bag for baking sweet breads or muffins...it adds great moisture.

2. Now place your cheesecloth over your other bowl and pour all of the strained almond milk over the cloth. This step will catch all of the fine almond granules that believe me, you do not want in your milk! Squeeze any remaining milk out of cloth and throw away the remaining pulp.

3. Flavor your milk with the salt, vanilla, and agave nectar. You can add or take away the amount of agave nectar recommended for a milder or sweeter milk. I like mine somewhere in the middle and 4 teaspoons of nectar usually satisfies my taste. You can also sweeten your milk with regular sugar,, but it would add a lot more calories...we don't want that now do we! The agave nectar in my opinion is the perfect sweetener..not too sweet and it does not have that pungent after taste that honey leaves.