Making milk without cows and cashew&coconut pulp macaroons

It was meat free last week, I hope you got on well with all those fabulous vegetarian recipes that were published everywhere. Still riding that wave I thought I would share with you how to make milk without cows. Now you wonder how is that possible ? It’s very easy, using soaked nuts, almonds or fresh coconut and simply fresh filtered water.

Nut milks are rich in minerals and good fats, making them a great alternative to dairy milk. They work well with tea or coffee and of course breakfast cereals, Irma’s Bircher Muesli was made with cashew milk for example. You can also make delicious chia puddings using nut milks, I love the combination of coconut milk and vanilla or almond milk and cinnamon!

Loving my leftovers, I add the residue pulp to energy balls, granola, multi-seed breads, crackers, pan-cake mixes or porridge- so please don’t throw it away- it just needs to be used within a day or two. This week I made some cashew & coconut macaroons, they are so good, especially if you give them a little chocolate coating- it’s Easter after all !

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Cashew & Coconut nut milk- makes 500ml x2

Cashew Milk
1 cup of soaked cashew nuts ( soaking over night is best, but 4hours should be fine too)
3 cups of filtered water
2cm of vanilla pod or a few drops of extract if you like to flavour your milk ( optional)

Coconut milk
1 cup of fresh coconut meat
3 cups of filtered water
2cm of vanilla pod or a few drops of extract if you like to flavour your milk ( optional)

If you want to make almond milk, please soak the almonds over night and peel them as the skin would make the milk quite bitter. You can also get already peeled almonds if you want to save time peeling them but they will be more expensive and you would still need to soak them over night.

You will always need a cheese cloth or bag to strain the milk.

And here is how it works : just put the soaked nuts or fresh coconut, water and optional the content of 2 cm of vanilla pod into a blender and blend until you have a smoothie like liquid.

Leftover tip : keep the piece vanilla pod and use it to flavour salt or sugar. Just add it to the jar and after a couple of days you have lovely flavoured vanilla salt or sugar, leave it in to keep the flavour- it works a treat.

Next get a jug and a cheese cloth ready and start poring the liquid.

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Once all is pored in, pick up the cloth and carefully squeeze it to get all the remaining liquid through, it does actually look quite authentic, doesn’t it ?

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You can either use the milk straight away or fill into a bottle and keep in the fridge, consume within 4-5 days and always shake well before use as the milk will separate. Enjoy!

Coconut & cashew pulp macaroons– makes 12-16
Nut milk pulp of one cup of coconut and one cup of cashew nuts
1/2 cup of desiccated coconut
1 tbsp of chia seeds & 1 tbsp of ground almonds
2 egg whites
3-4 tbsp of honey
content of half a vanilla pod or some extract (add the empty pod to your salt or sugar jar)
A pinch of sea salt
3/4 of bar of dark chocolate for the coating- ideally organic and 85%  ( optional)

Pre-heat the oven at 160C. Next place all ingredients except the cocolate into a food processor and blend until you get a nice gloopy and sticky texture. A handheld mixer or whisk should work fine too.

Now line a baking tray with baking paper and start making egg shaped macaroons using two tea spoons. You can also make balls if that is easier, although the mix is quite sticky so using spoons is probably going to be easiest.

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Bake for 15-20 minutes ( I always try one after 15 minutes to see if they are done). Leave to cool before coating the macaroons with chocolate.

For the coating, melt chocolate over a hot water bath, adding a small pinch of sea salt gives the chocolate coating an extra twist. For the water bath boil water in a pot, take off the hob and put a glass bowl on top, then break chocolate into smaller pieces into the bowl and keep stirring with a wooden spoon until completely melted. Now dunk the macaroons into the chocolate-coating the bottom part- best to use your hands and leave to set on a sheet of baking paper- done-delicious ! Happy Easter !!

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