I often get asked these kind of questions, including if shop bought soya milk or almond milk is raw. The answer is unfortunately no. To make soya milk, the soya beans are first cooked, and other milks are usually pasteurised.

The good news is that it is relatively easy to make you own milk with most kinds of nuts or seeds. Hemp milk is particularly nutritious with good quantities of omega 3 fatty acids, but it doesn’t keep too long. Almonds, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds and mature coconuts all make good milks.

Instructions to make your own milks:

1. Soak your nuts or seeds, preferably for about 8 hours, but less will do if you don’t have time. Mature coconut doesn’t need soaking.
2. Drain the nuts or seeds and rinse in clean water.
3. Add to blender with enough water to cover plus about half as much again. (The more water you add, the thinner the milk will be. The less water, the thicker the milk, but if you make it too thick, your blender might have difficulty blending.) If you are using coconut, you can use the coconut water which adds a delicious sweetness to the milk.
4. Blend until relatively smooth.
5. Optional for most nuts and seeds, necessary for hemp seeds: strain the milk through either a nut milk bag, cheesecloth or sieve.

If you prefer sweeter milk, you can add some dates or other soaked dried fruit or a few tablespoons of lucuma or other raw sweetener.

Once you have your milk, you can either drink it as it is, or use it to make a milkshake or smoothie.

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To make the base:

• 100g buckwheaties
• 50g mulberries
• 2 fresh dates
• 1 tablespoon cacao nibs
• a little water

Put 70g of buckwheates, the mulberries and dates into a food processor and process until you have a crumbly mixture. Add a tablespoon or two of water and process again and the mixture should start sticking together. Add the rest of the buckwheaties and the cacao nibs and process briefly so that there will be some crunchy bits left. Press into a cake tin.

Fruit layer:

Take about 500g of fresh cherries, remove stones, chop into quarters and spread out on the base.

Topping:

• 2 mature (brown) coconuts
• 5 tablespoons lucuma powder
• 1 teaspoon vanilla powder
• 1 teaspoon agave nectar
• about 10 cherries with stones removed
• a few squeezes of lemon juice

First make coconut cream from the coconuts: open, remove flesh and chop into pieces. Blend until fluffy. Squeeze through a nut milk bag to get the coconut cream.

Stir the lucuma,vanilla powder, agave and lemon juice in to the coconut cream.

Blend up the cherries and mix them in. Hopefully the mixture should be relatively thick now (but still liquid enough to pour), if not you might need to add some more lucuma.

Pour over the cherries on the base and place in the fridge to set.

Hope you like it!

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• Raw Chocolate Pie
• Mango Custard
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Finely chop a piece of leek (about 20g) and tear up some fresh coriander leaves and marinade them in lemon juice and flax oil. (If you don’t have leek, I’m sure onion would work just as well.)

Slice some mushrooms and mix them in well.

In a seed grinder (or blender) grind a couple of handfuls of pine nuts. Then add a handful of coriander and a little water and grind until smooth. Mix this in with the mushrooms and it’s ready to eat.

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• 4 soaked sun dried tomato halves
• flesh of 1 mango
• about 10 cherry tomatoes
• 1/2 a red pepper
• small piece of fresh ginger
• small amount of cayenne pepper

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• Tomato curry sauce
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• 1/2 sweet yellow pepper
• 2 “black cherry” cherry tomatoes
• a small piece of courgette
• 3 sun dried tomato halves (soaked for 10 minutes)
• about 5cm of the green leaf part of a leek
• a small piece of fresh ginger
• a small piece of a fresh hot Thai chilli
• a good handful of fresh basil

This all went into the blender. I served it on a load of wild greens, with an avocado and a bit of unpasteurised goats cheese.

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Hemp Milk

• 150g hemp seeds, soaked
• soak water from figs (see below)
• water from young coconut

The rest

• handful figs, soaked (I used about 10 baby figs)
• 4 bananas
• young coconut flesh (maybe 1/4 of a coconut)
• 1/2 tsp vanilla powder
• 1 heaped tablespoon cacao powder
• 3-4 tablespoons cacao nibs
• 1 tsp mesquite meal

First make hemp milk: drain and rinse the hemp seeds, then blend with the fig soak water and some young coconut water. Try not to use too much liquid, but this will depend on your blender. Squeeze through a nut milk bag (or muslin bag / cheesecloth) to make the milk.

Then put the rest of the ingredients into your blender along with the hemp milk and blend until smooth. Place in a container and freeze. With my freezer, it was ready after about 8 hours.

I’m sure there are many variations – if you find something that works well, leave a comment and let everyone know…

Enjoy, love Rob

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• 4 tablespoons lucuma powder
• 4 tablespoons raw cacao powder
• 1/4 tsp vanilla powder
• lemon juice
• grated lemon peel
• a little grated ginger
• a squirt of agave

Just keep mixing until you have a thick chocolate pie filling.

I made my own base, I soaked lots of sunflower seeds and a small amount of pumpkin seeds for a few hours, rinsed and dried then and put them in the food processor with some nice fresh dates. Processed until a pie base consistency – for me it was not thick enough so I added a tablespoon of lucuma to thicken.

I also made a raspberry sauce to serve it with – I blended two punnets of raspberries from the farmers market with a handful of fresh dates and a squirt or two of agave (more dates and less agave and this could have been raspberry jam!)

And of course it was delicious and everyone wanted the recipe – so here you are!

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This video shows how to make the coconut cream. If you don’t have a juicer, I made it in my Vitamix by grinding the coconut up (dry) and squeezing through a hemp milk bag.

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• How to make Nut Milk and Seed Milk
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• 2 honey mangos
• flesh of 2 young coconuts
• squirt of agave nectar
• 2 tablespoons mango powder
• small amount of the young coconut water

Take the flesh of the mangos and blend with the young coconut flesh, and a little of the coconut water (the amount you use will depend on your blender, but you only need a little). Once it’s smooth, add a squirt of agave and the mango powder and blend a little to mix that in.

It does work fine without the agave and mango powder, the agave adds a little sweetness and the mango powder thickens it and gives it a stronger mango flavour.

I’m sure this mango custard has many uses, I’d suggest pouring it over a bowl of freshly chopped local strawberries would work well…

Enjoy, love Rob

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• 1 tablespoon agave
• 2 tablespoons lucuma powder
• 1 teaspoon coconut butter
• a few drops of peppermint oil

Mix all ingredients well (it takes quite a bit of mixing) until smooth. It works without the peppermint oil as a plain icing and I’m sure other essential oils could be used, I think orange would work well. Let me know in the comments below how you use it…

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