Maple cinnamon pecan milk

If you’ve read my almond milk post (which you surely have, right?), you’ve probably already had a snicker (or two or ten) over the idea of nut milk, so I’ll spare you the dirty jokes here. Besides, we’ve got more important business to attend to than wisecracking nut-milking quips—a GIVEAWAY! More on that at the end of this post, but first, the star of the show: Maple. Cinnamon. Pecan. Milk. Need I say more? This is a riff on a recipe in Sarma Melngailis’ book Raw Food/Real World, and it’s fantastic.

1 cup raw pecans
3 3/4 cups water
1/4 cup maple syrup
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
Pinch of nutmeg
Pinch of sea salt

Soak the pecans in a bowl of filtered water for 4-8 hours, or overnight.



Drain and rinse the pecans well and place them in a high-speed blender with 3 3/4 cups of cold filtered water.



Cover and blend on high for 1-2 minutes or until smooth. Pour the milk through a nut milk bag into a pitcher or large bowl.



Strain the milk through the bag, squeezing and twisting and wringing to extract as much as possible. Transfer the nut meat from the bag to a small container and refrigerate for later use (add it to other goodies like oatmeal, smoothies, cookie dough, and so on). Pour the milk back into the (rinsed) blender and add the maple syrup, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, and sea salt (and, if you want to be really indulgent, a spoonful of coconut oil!). Cover and blend to combine. Taste for sweetness, adding more maple syrup if desired, then pour into a pitcher or other container for storage.



Smooth, silky, luxurious—this stuff’s liquid velvet. It’s so rich and creamy that it’s almost closer in texture to a thin milkshake than simple milk, and maple syrup + pecans + cinnamon is a [polygamous] marriage made in flavor heaven. Normally I’d suggest all kinds of uses for a milk like this, but honestly, I’ve yet to ingest it in any way besides simply drinking it from a glass. It’s that good.



Yield: about 1 quart. Per 1-cup serving: I’m not sure! There is no good way to calculate how many calories and fat/protein grams are left behind in the nut meat. Since pecans seem to leave less pulp in the bag than almonds, it’s a fair bet that there’s more fat, and therefore calories, left in the milk. My very rough estimate for 1 cup of pecan milk would be about 90-100 calories and 7-8 grams of fat.

Oh, you thought I forgot, did you? Hardly! I am ecstatic to present to you the first-ever
ALMOST VEGAN GIVEAWAY!
The wonderful folks over at Pure Joy Planet have offered to award one of their excellent nut milk bags to three, count ’em, THREE lucky winners! This is the very bag I myself bought and use, and it works like a charm—this pecan milk and my almond milk can attest to that! You can also use it to strain juices or make sprouts. It’s versatile, sturdy, easy to clean, and you can win one here!

HOW TO ENTER: Leave a comment below telling me your favorite kind of nut and how you like to eat it—raw, roasted and salted, as nut butter, in a baked good, in a stir-fry? Now, I’m no stranger to having a little naughty fun when talking about nuts, but let’s keep it family-friendly and limit it to TREE nuts ;] The deadline for entries is Tuesday morning, May 25th, at 9:00am CST (which is around 3pm that afternoon for anyone in the U.K. and midnight that night for those of you in Australia), and I’ll be choosing the three winners at random. Good luck, everyone! I can’t wait to see who will win!



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Homemade almond milk
Very berry "green" smoothie
Watermelon agua fresca