Pistachio Almond Milk

If you've been following my blog you might have read one of my previous posts about how to make Almond Milk or Cashew Milk.  We have a bit of a nut milk obsession in our house.  And you know you can make milk out of ANY nut! I know, it's crazy!! I had not thought about making Pistachio milk until I was browsing through Chef AJ's book, Unprocessed.

Chef AJ sent me a copy of her book back in January and I'm finally finding time to make more of the recipes in her book besides the Hail to the Kale salad.  If you haven't tried that one yet, please do yourself and your family a favor and make it this week!!

So the recipe for this in Unprocessed is 2 cups pistachios to 2 cups water.  Soak the Pistachios in water for two hours before you blend.  I didn't do that because I'm a recipe unfollower. I put 3/4 cup pistachios, 1/4 cup of almonds and threw them directly into the Vita-mix with 3 1/2 cups of water (I probably could have used 4). 

No soaking!  Yeah, I know, I am a bad raw foodie today :(  Well, I'm not a raw food purist anyway. See, I don't find any difference in taste or digestibility between soaking or not soaking before blending.  So feel free to break the soaking rule and just blend!  You can also use a fine mesh strainer instead of a nut milk bag but you will get some pulp. 

I almost forgot to mention that I also added 1 tbsp of Raw Blue Agave Nectar.  I recommend adding the sweetener.  Chef AJ didn't add any to hers but it needs it.

See my other posts about making nut milks if you need more specific directions. 

Happy nut milk making :)

"Hail to the Kale" Salad

I found this lovely raw kale salad recipe on Dr. McDougall's website.  I think it was in one of his newsletters.  Anyhow, my oldest daughter LOVES this salad and I do too!  It is not "low fat" but if you would like to make it low fat I recently got a message from Chef AJ, the creator of this recipe.  Her notes are at bottom of this post.

Ingredients
1 large bundle curly kale, washed
1 tbsp sesame seeds unhulled (I omitted these)
1/2 cup cup peanut butter or almond butter (I used almond butter)
1/2 cup water
1/8 cup fresh lime juice
1 clove garlic crushed
1 tbsp low sodium Organic Tamari
2 pitted raw dates
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes

Place peanut butter, water, lime juice, garlic, Tamari and dates in the blender on high until blended smoothly.  Dump 1/2 of the dressing over the kale and toss with hands, adding more as needed.  You can eat this right away but it tastes better if you let it marinate for at least 30 minutes.  You can even let it marinate overnight and it will wilt the kale nicely.

Enjoy!  And below is a note from Chef AJ on how to make it low fat:

"I am Chef AJ the creator of this recipe.  I am so glad you like it!  To make it lower in fat, simply substitute cooked cannelini beans (drained and rinsed) for the nut butter, than add back in 1-2 tablespoons of the nut butter until the desired flavor is achieved.  You will find many more delicious whole food plant based recipes without sugar, oil or salt in my book UNPROCESSED."

Love and Kale,

Chef AJ
www.EatUnprocessed.com