Love, Flax, and Chocolate

I love almond milk. I love chocolate. Sometimes I want something quicker and cheaper and easier than almond milk, though.

 Flax milk offers the nourishment of germinated flax seeds without the cost of raw almonds (which in California one must get directly from farmers in order to avoid pasteurization) and without having to strain through a nut milk bag.

To demonstrate how little work this is, I added time estimates to each step.

Start by making your flax milk.

Put 1/4 cup dry, raw, organic flax seeds in a bowl to soak
Let it stand at least an hour - best is overnight
(the work takes 1 minute - I'm not counting the soaking into the work time)

Put the soaked flax and 4 cups of filtered water in a blender (hi speed is best) and blend -- start on low and increase to high speed for about a minute
(takes about 3 minutes to get the blender out, add the water and soaked flax seeds, and blend)

That's it - Now you have your refreshing, inexpensive, healthy Flax Milk!

If you are a chocolate lover like me, make it chocolate.
Put a half tablespoon of cacao powder in a cup and pour the flax milk over it
Use a spoon or small whisk to stir

I don't use any sweeteners like honey, agave, coconut sugar, etc. to my cup of chocolate milk.  I add a very little stevia in the raw or sweet drops -- just enough that it tastes slightly sweet but not like stevia -- or a teensy bit of monk fruit sugar (like stevia it has no glycemic spike).
(this part takes maybe a little over 1 minute).

Wash out blender (blend soapy water starting on low and increasing to high speed for a minute).
This is not a big operation. What is that 5 or 6 minutes altogether?

Pour the remaining flax milk from blender to jar to store in the fridge (note that there will be settling at the bottom of the jar, but this blends in when you shake it up)

Note for making chocolate milk with refrigerated flax milk: The surface tension of liquids increases as temperature decreases. This is why cacao powder doesn't mix so well with chilled liquids. So once the flax milk is cold, I prep the cacao before I mix in the flax milk. I add the cacao powder to a dry cup, then add a little warm water to blend the cacao powder. My electric kettle has temperature controls, so I can bring water temperature up to about 130 degrees.  I add a little of this water to the cup of cacao powder and mix before adding cold flax milk.