French Pressed Almond Milk

Temporary veganism (Great and Holy Lent) begins today/tomorrow, and I decided to kick it off by making my first batch of nut milk in Kate, my shiny new food processor.

After reviewing my notes from last week's foodie date and reading various guides to making nut milks I settled on the following ratios and procedure:

1 cup of whole blanched almonds
4 cups of water
1 TBSP honey

I soaked the almonds in cold water for several hours then pulverized them in the food processor. Then I added water that had just come off boil in batches (to accommodate the size of Kate), blended the mixture for 2-3 minutes, and strained the resulting liquid in my french press. In between batches I returned the almond meal to the food processor. I sweetened the milk at the end by adding a TBSP of honey and shaking the lidded jar vigorously. The remaining pulp has been saved in the fridge and will probably end up mixed in with steel cut oats for breakfast.

The french press use had a couple of rationals behind it. One, I don't yet have any cheesecloth in my arsenal and didn't feel like dropping the money on it at the grocery while waiting for my Amazon order to arrive. Second, after reading the descriptions of making almond milk, it seemed to function on a very similar principle to coffee preparation. You want to extract oils and some fine solids from a pulverized seed type thing. A french press is a great tool for coffee -- why not almond milk.

I found that the french press did very nicely; although, a quick google search turned up one story of a shattered press. I used very slow and even pressure on the plunger and didn't try to force it down too quickly. The press seems no worse for the wear, and I have a happy little quart jar of homemade almond milk.

ETA: Made another batch the other night using cheesecloth to strain the milk from the almond pulp. I managed to extract about 3/4 cup more of milk from the mixture.