Almond Milk and Nutty Crackers

This afternoon I made some almond milk. (Click here for some nice step-by-step instructions with extra ingredients and pictures):

Almond Milk

1. 1 1/2 cups of almonds soaked in water overnight in the frig. Be sure to add a couple of inches of water over the almonds because my almonds soaked up so much that they were a bit uncovered this morning. This will result in about 2 cups of soaked almonds.
2. Drain water, rinse a couple times with fresh water.
3. Put in blender 1 cup of almonds, 2 cups of water. Blend until as smooth as you can get it.
4. Drain the "milk" from the almonds. I used cheesecloth (4 layers) over a strainer. Reserve almonds.
5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 with remaining almonds.

That's it. It's pretty bland, there are lots of ideas to jazz it up but for now, I'm happy to have it rather bland with fewer calories for cereal, smoothies, that sorta thing. Next time, though, I think I will use 1/2 the water so it will be thicker. 

I've been wanting to make my own crackers so they have fewer carbs, no wheat and no preservatives. I found a few recipes that use almond flour, so I thought I would use the almonds left over from making almond milk. I tried it without drying it. From the recipe above I had about 2 cups of almonds total. This is the recipe I tried:

Nutty Crackers, take 1

1 1/2 cups of almond "paste" (not sure what to call it!)
1/2 t sea salt
2 T soybean oil
3 T coconut oil
1/4 c coarsely crushed pumpkin seeds
1/4 c coarsely crushed sunflower seeds

Roll out to about 1/8" - 1/4". I rolled them out on a flat cookie sheet covered with a silicone mat. I put wax paper on top and rolled with a rolling pin. (Do not make the mistake of thinking you can do it without the wax paper, it sticks!) Bake at 350 degrees, 20-30 minutes or until golden brown.

I like them! They are rather tasty, but a bit greasy. They could probably use just a touch more salt.

I had a hard time getting everything to bind. I'm a bit concerned with all the fat and I'd like to try to get some protein in there. I'm thinking I might try a little bit of protein powder added in next time. I have no idea of the chemistry of cooking, so I have no idea how that will work.

I based my recipe on a couple recipes. The first was the Rosemary Fig Crackers Recipe without the rosemary, figs and egg (I didn't have any eggs). Noticed a couple others that used no eggs (Chickpea Crackers and Sesame Crackers and Gluten-Free Herb Crackers) that seemed to use extra oil.