Ratatouille and Almond Milk

Tonight's dinner was fantastic, I wish I had brought my camera, so beautiful and delicious. We talked for a while with Eric, the owner, he used to own Sparks restaurant in San Francisco (a high end vegetarian restaurant) but moved to Eugene when he became a father. Eugene is a tough place to have a higher end restaurant, not a lot of money here, so go eat there you'll love it. I can't wait though, Eric told me his new passion is raw food and is working on some raw desserts and more raw entrees...I'm still on my raw kick.

Speaking of raw...tonight I finally made fresh raw almond milk. I had been apprehensive about making it because we don't own a vitamix, but I found a recipe that calls for only an everyday blender.

Raw Vanilla Almond Milk

1 cup soaked almonds
3 cups water
1 vanilla bean, seeds scooped out
3-5 soft pitted dates (or soak hard dates in water for 1/2 hour) or
other sweetener to taste such as honey or stevia

To make raw almond milk blend the soaked almonds with the water until smooth. Then strain the mixture through a sprout bag, cheesecloth, or strainer into a big bowl. Save the almond pulp in a container and put in the refrigerator for later use.

Put the almond milk back into the blender carafe and blend in the vanilla seeds and dates or other sweetener until smooth. This milk will last in the refrigerator for about 3-5 days. Shake well before using.

So one thing about soaking almonds: It's great to soak your almonds even if you aren't making milk. The skins of almonds, and most other nuts have enzyme inhibitors. This means that your body has to use its own enzymes to digest them (same premise as cooked food...cooking foods kills their natural enzymes meaning you have to use yours).

To soak almonds:
put raw almonds in a bowl, fill with water. let soak for 24hours, keep in water. You should change the water about once a day.

That's it...super easy. They are great too, they plump up.