Eating Well

As I am trying to eat "better", I have been looking for a few new recipes and at some different websites and blogs.  I am looking a bit into the Paleo diets.  They can be pretty hard to follow if you are not serious about them.  No dairy, legumes, grains, sugars, added salt. 

Wait, why am I doing this? 

Well, like I said I'm just looking right now.  You test drive a car before you buy it, why not test eat a diet?  So this week I am weaning myself from dairy and grains.  The grains won't be so hard, but the milk may be a whole other story.  I am not a Packer's Fan, but I am a cheesehead!    I also have some coffee with my milk. 

One thing I have done to help transition to dairy free was to make some almond milk.  No soy milk, it would  be a legume.  It was easy to make.  Now I wouldn't drink it plain, just not my thing.  I tried it in my coffee.  It might suffice, the jury's still out on that one.  I am having a smoothie that I made with it at this moment and it is pretty good. 

There are a couple of good sites that I have bookmarked that have given me some good ideas.  Here they are:
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/
http://www.everydaypaleo.com/
http://www.zonediet.com/

Here is how to make almond milk:

Almond Milk
1 cup raw almonds
4 cups water
vanilla bean or vanilla extract

If you do not have a powerful blender, soak the almonds overnight. Discard the soaking water.

Place almonds and water in blender. Blend until white and frothy and almonds are very fine. Scrape the vanilla bean and add to milk, or use vanilla extract to taste. You can also sweeten if you like.

Pour through a fine mesh strainer. Refrigerate just as you would dairy milk and us the same way. Keeps about the same length of time as well.