Friday, May 21, 2010

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!



If you like this, you might also like...
Homemade almond milk
Very berry "green" smoothie
Watermelon agua fresca

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24 comments:

  1. My favorite nuts are almonds. I love to eat them plain, as almond butter, in oatmeal, in muffins...just about everything!

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  2. Oh geez, I can't even choose. I LOVE pb, but I don't really like peanuts...almonds are wonderful in every way...hazelnuts, mmm...

    Shoot, I can't decide. This still counts, right?

    :)

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  3. I love macadamia nuts! Chocolate covered is probably my favorite, but I haven't had it in any form that I DON'T like!

    thewideworldof (at) gmail (dot) com

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  4. Hard to pick a favorite... either candied pecans sprinkled on a spinach salad or hazelnuts in nutella form or almonds in some sweet & salty combination.

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  5. I love peanut butter but I like chomping on almonds. But the best kind of nut is with chocolate. That's right, I'm talkin' about NUTELLA!! :D Thanks for offering this giveaway!

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  6. Cashews are my favorite! My favorite uses for them are to either roast them with chili oil and use them to top salads or stir-fry, or to simply toss them with dark chocolate for a snack.

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  7. OMG Peanut Butter Covered Planet. Seriously, I will eat my living room sofa right now if you cover it in peanut butter. Also, in unrelated to peanut butter news, I have a nut bag (ha) in my amazon.com shopping cart right now, so its pretty much fate that I saw your giveaway. Congrats on your first, by the way!

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  8. Woohoo for a great giveaway! I would love to have one of those nut bags (he he)! Let's see...my favorite nut at the moment is almonds. I like to eat them by the handful with some dried cherries. I also really like almond butter....yum! And, of course, almond milk is delicious too!

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  9. I never met a nut I didn't like :)

    I'd say my favorite is pinenuts and of course my favorite seed is sesame!

    I would love to win a bag and make some homemade nut milks (love almond milk)

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  10. Oooh look, there are people coming out of the woodwork :) I love that you noted the polygamous marriage components, because the maple syrup and cinnamon is precisely what I love the sound of :)

    My favourite nut (today) is pistachio, and best way to eat it is in gelato in Florence :D

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  11. Plain cashews are my absolute favourite - I just eat them roasted or raw.

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  12. my favorite nut is the peanut. best eaten as peanut butter or honey roasted peanuts!

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  13. I try not to play favorites with my nuts, but I definitely eat plain, unsalted raw almonds the most.

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  14. thanks for the linkback :)

    fave kind of nut is cashews b/c i can make everything from kale chips to vegan cheezecake to choc chip cookie dough balls with them!

    xo

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  15. My favorite are raw almonds. I love them in almost everything! Especially yogurt and oatmeal. I love almond milk as well!

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  16. I love chocolate covered anynuts - peanuts, almonds, cashews, macadamias, etc. Mmm

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  17. If I could only eat one nut for the rest of my life it would have to be cashews, no doubt :)

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  18. Any nut in a butter yum! Add some vegan butter and sugar and heat and you get a hot nutty sauce. Even more yummy!

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  19. Oh, pecan milk is my favorite nut milk ever! I like to add in a little pinch of cinnamon and nutmeg- perfect for the winter holidays especially. However, my all time favorite nut is the pistachio. :)

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  20. I'm gonna have to be boring and say my favorite nut wonder is peanut butter! Although I don't have much of a craving for it right now...I normally love it and will slap it on just about anything :> I've never made my own nut milk but would love to try sometime!

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  21. for everyday eating, I must say I rarely pass a day without organic PB, but lately I'm really loving cashews in raw balls.

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  22. Hey hey! Congrats on the first giveaway!! I have to say, I'm not the biggest nut lover but I do love me some almond milk!

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  23. I love all nuts but my favorite would be pistachios; then pine nuts; byt they have to be of the best quality, roasted in Lebanon at the best roaster and the pine nuts fresh and harvested in the mountains. See, I am picky!

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  24. I want to give a big THANK YOU to everyone who entered, and yet another congrats to the winners! I hope to be able to do more of these in the future, so watch out for the next one!

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