Practical Sewing: Nut Milk Bags

Sometimes it's nice to a do a quick project that helps you hone your skills, makes your life easier and helps you to feel accomplished. Ever heard of a nut milk bag? They're pretty amazing. It allows you to make homemade nut milk really easily.  Also, for those of you without juicers, you can easily use this to make juice as well, I know one of my friends' mothers makes carrot juice by blending carrots with water and then separating it using a mesh sieve.  It seemed tedious, having to press down with a spoon or your fingers to strain out all the water.  Using a nut milk bag to separate the water from the pulp would make her job (or rather her children's job) a lot easier. She was actually the inspiration for me making these, they're a gift to her and for all she's done for me.

I made the bags out of drill fabric.  I'm not really sure what exactly drill is, but it seems to be unbleached and made from natural cotton which is what I wanted for something that would be used for making food. I bought the two different types I found at JoAnn's, figuring that she could use the one she likes best.  The difference between the two is the amount of spacing between the weave, so one might work better on certain juices than others. Using my nut milk bag (yes, I know, it sounds funny), as a guideline, i cut each bag on the fold and only serged the vertical sides. that's one less seam for the solids to get cleaned out of. I also omitted the drawstring that was in my bag. I never use it for making milks, however, while writing this, I just realized that I use it to dry my bag by hanging it on my cupboard knobs after I've washed it. Drat!!  I'm sure she can figure out another way to dry them. But all in all, this was simple, allowed me to use my serger (for the second time) and help out someone who works extremely hard for everything.

I've been talking about these nut milk bags, but I figure I should share with you a recipe so you can use them! This is the simple recipe that I use for my almond milk.

Almond Milk Recipe:
1 cup Almonds
4 cups water or coconut water
1 teaspoon Vanilla

• Soak the almonds for 2-8 hours. 
• After they've soaked, place the almonds and the 4 cups of water in the blender. Blend on high power until it seems thoroughly mixed.  
• Place the nut milk bag in a bowl and pour the mixture into the bag, being careful not to overfill.  Squeeze the bag, letting all the liquids into the bowl and keeping the almond pulp in the bag. 
• Store your new almond milk in a jar or container, add the vanilla and shake it up!
• The remaining pulp can be used as to bulk up cakes or pastries, or dehydrate it to make almond meal. 

Note: If you prefer your almond milk to be sweetened, just soak 2 or 3 dried dates with the almonds and add them to the blender at the same time as the almonds.