another easy milk from my vegetable dairy

Oat milk is a nice milk to use as in ingredient--it's more substantial and flavorful than plain water, but it's cheaper to make than almond milk doesn't have a (to some) obtrusive beany flavor like soy. You just have to remember to start your oats soaking the night before, and after that it's only about five minutes work. Whatever you do, don't make the mistake I once made of buying ready-made oatmilk--when you make it, it tastes pleasantly of oats, but the boughten kind tastes like stale cardboard.

To make about five cups of milk, soak a cup of oat groats overnight. Drain them, then grind in your blender with two cups of water till really smooth. Add two or three more cups of water, blend some more, then strain through a cheesecloth. The oats get really viscous, so you'll have to squeeze it through--it won't drip much at all on its own. Squeeze hard! You should only have about 1/4C of oat solids left in your cloth.

This should keep a few days in the fridge. Be sure to shake it every time you use it--as you can see in the above picture, the oat stuff really likes to sink to the bottom.

milkmaid

I got a soy milk maker a couple of months ago, and I really like it--it can make grain milks, mung bean milk, and nut and seed milks as well as soy milk, and all for much less than buying them at the store. A quart of soy milk costs at least $2.00, and enough soybeans to make a quart only costs about 15¢. My favorite milk so far has been using half soybeans, half brown rice: the brown rice gets rid of the beany flavor and adds creaminess to the milk--it's as thick as whole cow's milk, but without the unpleasant (to me) mouth-coating unctuousness.

Today I made a quick-and-easy milk that didn't require my new machine or any cooking at all--just a good blender and some cheesecloth. It has a nice, nutty taste and should have some omega-3 from the hemp seed.

Almond-Hemp Milk

1 1/4 oz hemp seeds
2 oz almonds
5C water
optional: salt, sugar, vanilla to taste (I like my milk plain)

Soak the seeds and almonds in a couple of cups of water for a few hours, then blend thoroughly in your blender. Add the rest of the water and blend some more. Pour through a cheesecloth-lined sieve into a big bowl. When most of it's gone through, gather up the cheesecloth and squeeze the rest of the milk out. You can add the remains to some muffins or something if you feel bad about throwing them in the compost.