My vegan milks bring all the boys (and girls) to the yard...

Lots of people ask me where I get all these wacky milks I use in my recipes. Well, folks, I make them. And it couldn't be easier, with one of these. This, my friends is a SoyQuick, and it can be your best friend if you let it. It makes soy milk, rice milk, other grain milks and nut milks. I bought mine second hand but you can also buy them online here.

I think it's worth it to have one, since I go through a lot of milk and with a machine, it costs pennies per litre to make soy milk, and is also much cheaper to make other kinds of milks than to buy them. My SoyQuick has paid for itself. There's even a milk calculator  on the SoyQuick site which will tell you how much money you'd save by making your own milk, based on what kind of milk you drink, and how much per week. Besides the thrift factor, it also creates far less packaging and you can support local soybean growers if you so choose. Plus, the biproduct of soymilk making, okara, can be used in many recipes (I will try to post a picture of this sometime - looks like mashed potatoes.)

I've read some food blogs that say they find it too time consuming to make soy milk. If you're making it by hand, I am totally with you. But all you have to  do with a machine is soak your beans or nuts ahead (4 hours or 8 hours respectively - it's become part of my bed-time routine to put beans on to soak, for both soy-milk making and cooking for meals)  pop them in the filter cup,  attach the filter cup to the main grinding/heating mechanism (that white part in the photo) fill the pitcher part with water,  put the main mechanism into the water filled pitcher and turn the machine on. About 15 minutes later you have fresh milk. Pour it in a jug - I recommend pouring it through a fine sieve for a smoother texture––add your sugar and salt if desired, and you're done. No preservatives. No added sugar or salt (you can add these if you like). No thickeners. No emulsifiers. The hardest part of the whole job is cleaning the thing after, but even that's not bad if you get it right away or soak it first. Counting cleaning time, it still takes less than 30 minutes to make soy-milk, and most of the time you're just waiting for the machine to be done.

Here's soaked almonds and barley getting ready to be made into milk. For almond barley milk (I haven't seen other recipes for it online - you can find lots of recipes for other milks, though) I use 1 cup raw hulled almonds, and 1 tbsp barley, soaked about 6 hours.

I try to alternate the types of milk I make to vary my protein sources.