Almond Meal

Today I ground up the almonds I soaked overnight, and thought I would post a pic for anyone who may not be quite sure what "almond meal" looks like.

Before I ground them up, I covered them with water and 1 TB sea salt in a bowl and let them soak overnight. Then I drained and rinsed them, and spread them out on my stoneware baking sheet (love that thing!). I put them in the oven at 150 degrees for several hours, mixing them up to make sure they got dried out pretty good.



Next, I ran them through my grain mill with the shredder attachment. This is a messy process, and I have to scrape the attachment several times to get the sticky meal off so it will work again. But in the end, this is what it looks like.



This is what I use in all the recipes I post that call for "almond meal." You can buy almond FLOUR at a grocery store or health food store, and it is powdered and dry. This meal is not near as fine as flour, and it's moist and slightly sticky. I think almond flour would also work in the recipes where I use almond meal, but the end result will be slightly different than mine. If you don't have a grain mill or food processor to run the almonds through, try the blender. Once you have your meal, store it in an airtight container in the fridge to keep it fresh.