 Hello everybody, welcome to healthy cooking with the sisters. This is Nicole and my name is Sharon and today we are going to make some plant-based milk as an alternative. This is a segment where we shall be showing you a lot of healthy and wholesome meals. So Nicole, would you like to pray for us? Sure. Let's believe and pray. Dear Jesus, thank you so much for this day. Thank you for the gift of life and Lord I pray that even as we do this demonstration on how to make this plant-based milk, dear Jesus, may we do it in the right way to glorify your name and dear Jesus, may we learn from these simple recipes and make our lives better by eating yummy and wholesome and nutritious meals using my prayer, trusting and believing. Amen. Amen. So, before we get started, Nicole, how many different types of plant-based milks do you know? Okay, so I know the soy milk, the famous soy milk, there's almond milk, there's cashew milk, I've seen rice milk as well, I know there's coconut milk, I think that about exhausts what comes stock of mine. I know I've heard of peanut milk as well, which I'd like to taste sometime, yeah, there's hemp milk, most nuts can make milks as well. So today we are going to make something that has three different kinds of ingredients in one milk. So it's basically a nut and grain milk. So we have cashews, so these are already soaked, we're using three and a quarter cups, sorry, three quarter cups of soaked cashews, you can soak them overnight, you can soak them for 30 minutes in hot water or overnight in cold water. Also Sharon, sorry to interrupt you, why do we soak them, why don't we use them directly, why is there need to soak them? Just also to soften them and also just to make sure that they plump up a little bit, yeah. They soak in the water. Yes, they soak in the water. Then we are going to use a quarter cup of oats, I'm sure many people have a lot of oats in their homes because it's usually a go-to breakfast option, so that's a quarter cup and then we are going to use desiccated coconut, that's half a cup of desiccated coconut. So it's a bit hard to make coconut milk just from the main coconut, yeah? Yes. Because you have to, yeah, you have to peel it off from the, they call it coconut nazi, so it's peeling it off from the skin and it's quite an effort, so the desiccated coconut is quite easy to use. And then we're going to use a pinch of salt. Salt is a balancer of flavour, so you just use a pinch just to make sure that everything is well balanced. We may use a sweetener if we desire, but for now I just want to use it plain because this is a milk you can use to cook, you can use as a beverage drink, you can use it as a, just to drink it on its own, with cereal, so we don't want to sweeten it because when we sweeten it we narrow it only to sweet ingredients, yeah, so we put in that on the blender and then we put in three cups of boiled water, okay? So you blend that until smooth and then we shall spit. I know you said blend till smooth, but when do you actually know it's ready? You can see some granules on the inside, if you check on the side, if you do, most blenders are see through, so you're able to see some grains on the inside. You can also use a spoon just to check and see if there's bits and pieces of the cashew. The cashew is what would make it blend for longer because the cashew is a grain, is a nut, sorry, the desiccated coconut and oats would blend really easily, so you can see it's still a bit grainy, so we can blend it a little bit more, maybe for another two, three minutes and then, yeah, then we can sieve it. So I think that's enough. Also the reason we blend it longer, you get more product once you blend it for a while because then it squeezes out and makes everything into a liquid. If you blend it for a short while then the liquid isn't as much. So we are going to use a nut milk bag. This is a nut milk bag. Usually you can buy it from some shops, they have them, Indian shops have them, some shops in some malls have them, especially the ones that sell kitchen equipment. But if you do not have this, you can use gauze. You just fold it into several bits and if you can get like a wide gauze and then just pass the milk through and try and fold it and then just squeeze the milk. It's a bit messy so make sure that you have a lot of working space and also because it's something that you're handling with your hands, make sure that your hands are always very clean. Also, before I point in for you, what's so special about, why do we need to use, where can I use a sieve? Because the holes in the sieve are not as- They're too large, right? Yeah, they're not as small as we would need them to be. So finding even any home, anything at home that is fine enough to get rid of all the small particles, right? Yeah. So you can always makeshift anything. Sometimes when I don't have gauze or the nut milk bag, you know these cloths that you've been getting in the supermarket, you just wash one prior to using it and you can always use that. And you make sure you just dedicate it only for milk making. Yes. So Nicole, you can pour it in for me. So as you can see, there's already some that's coming out. So you just press it a little bit, you also don't want to be too rough. I mean, this thing is made of cloth. So if you're too tough on it, you may tear it and then that just makes your work useless because then you'd have to start again with a different cloth. So just gently, also Nicole, have you heard of people who use the pulp for other things that remains? Yes. I've heard about it. But I'm not so sure if I remember exactly what they use it for. But I know when people make coconut milk with desiccated coconut, they can use whatever fiber is left on the pulp for baking. So if you have any coconut recipe, you can even put it in a vanilla cake so that it doesn't go to waste. This is always a good source of fiber in our bodies just to get everything in our guts moving well so that stops constipation and all the good things we know about fiber. So you said you didn't remember but you really just explained everything for us. So that's mainly what people use, the pulp that remains for blend. You can use it in, you can even put it in your smoothies as well just to make it more filling. I know people who put them in their smoothies, you can bake it, you can toast it in the oven and then just also just pour it over your food, your soups. I've also remembered you can actually use it for granola right? Yeah. If you're making granola so it doesn't go to waste, you can always put it in the oven with your granola as it's baking and it doesn't go to waste. So I think that is, I think we've gotten quite a bit. Actually this makes about 750 ml to a litre of milk and that's better beating at home. So thank you so much Niko, so you can pour it into the jug so you can see how creamy it is. The reason I like this milk is because soy milk has an acquired taste so not too many people like it. But milk is quite thick so I find it very difficult to make hot beverages with. Then coconut is thin so all of them are just different on their own but when you mix it together it's a very thick milk. You can use it for tea, chocolate, you can use it for cereal, you can drink it just as a glass, you can add in your fruits and then make a smoothie. So it's a really nice thick milk alternative that's why I like it and it's also very wholesome and it has very many nutrients that you can get in it because of the oats, because of the cashews and because of the desiccated coconut. So I'm just going to give Nicole a little taste. Moment of truth. 100%. Yeah. It's actually really nice, I can actually drink it like this. So how you store it, you put it, if you do have a glass jar it would be much better than storing it in plastic, put it in the fridge, probably the coldest part in your fridge so maybe at the back, not on the doors, although most of us would be more inclined to put it on the doors because that's maybe where the space would be. But if you can get smaller just so you can put it at the back so that it lasts longer. And also because remember these items are all different textures, it means that the milk can also separate, that doesn't mean that the milk is spoilt, it just means that the coconut may come to the top, the oats may be at the bottom, so you have to always keep on shaking, just swirl it a little bit every time before you use it and then you can boil it, you can drink it as it is, yeah and enjoy it as your family, okay? So that's all for this session and I pray that you may enjoy it with your homes and that you may be blessed and enjoy this plant-based alternative. Bye. See you.