Thursday, February 18, 2010

Make you Own Rice Milk

Have you ever noticed that once you start thinking about something, its hard to stop?  A few days we were talking about milk that comes in bags and/or plastic jugs and I think we can all agree that we would rather have the good ol' days of glass bottles.  I think I might have been on a high horse at the time thinking I was doing a better job saving the world because we don't buy milk in plastic.  Now I realize I'm doing even more harm...

Neither Firefly or myself can drink cow milk so we buy rice milk in small boxes that keep well in the pantry.  I just realized that we throw every milk container away...the small boxes cannot be recycled! The containers are a mix of paper, cardboard, and wax and as far as I know, recyclable. 

Now lets compare that to the milk drinker we know around here.  Every milk drinker I know in Reno drinks Model Dairy milk.  Model Dairy is a local company with local cows and the milk comes in plastic jugs...jugs that can be recycled.

What are we going to do now?  Should we make the switch to the local, plastic jug milk?  Nope.

I found a recipe online for rice milk so I am just going to start making it here at home.  I found the rice milk recipe at a site called the Vegan Reader.  I have never heard of them before but I like what I've read so far.  The page with the recipe also talks about the milk Rice Dream and the changes in the company over the years.  The parent company of Rice Dreams now has some major share holders that I don't really want to support...Wal-Mart, ExxonMobil, Philip Morris and Monsanto. 

We actually use Pacific Rice now instead of Rice Dream (we switched for flavor reasons) but there are alot of questions the Vegan Reader asks about Rice Dream that I can't answer about Pacific Rice.

I'll let you know what I think of the new recipe once we try it, I also report back on the easy of the recipe as well.


How To Make Rice Milk – The Recipe
Ingredients and Supplies:
1 cup uncooked organic long grain brown rice
8 cups water for cooking
More water for diluting
1 teaspoon salt
Glass mason jars for storage
A Blender
Mesh strainer
Directions
Thoroughly wash the rice.
Put 8 cups of water in a big pot and bring it to a boil over high heat.
Pour in the rice.
Cover the pot and lower the heat to let the water simmer.
Cook for 3 hours.

You will end up with something that looks a bit like a soupy rice pudding. Add the salt.
In batches, fill your blender halfway with the rice mixture and halfway with water. Blend until very smooth. Strain twice through a fine mesh strainer into a mason jar. Continue on with the rest of the milk until you’re finished, filling jars and screwing the lids on good and tight.

Even with the extra water, the homemade rice milk ends up thicker than the product you might be used to if you’ve always purchased Rice Dream Rice Milk. It’s more like rice cream! You may want to dilute it further at the time of serving it. Just add a bit more water until it’s the desired consistency.

3 comments:

wendyytb said...

Thanks, Tony. How many jars did you get out of this recipe, and did you have to process them in hot water to keep?

Amber said...

Awesome! I'm going to try and make rice milk ASAP. Thanks.

Tony R. said...

Good question Wendy! I just found the recipe this morning...I will ask over at Vegan Reader and let you know what they say the yield is and also how to store. I was thinking I would just freeze the extra but dry storage would be much better. I also want to try and tweek the recipe so I can use a slow cooker.