I've been wanting to make almond milk from scratch for some time, but it always seemed like too much work. But when I came across this recipe on Oh She Glows , I thought, this is doable. As always, I made a couple of exceptions: I didn't have a nut-milk bag, and I didn't use vanilla, because buying dried vanilla beans is expensive! I thought the flavors from the dates and cinnamon would be plenty. I soaked my raw almonds--and dates, which is suggested if they are not very soft to start with--for about five hours. The recipe doesn't say how much water to soak them in, but I just made sure they were well covered with water. (You can also soak them over night.) Then I drained and rinsed the soaked almonds and dates. I then blended the almonds and dates with 3.5 cups of water on high for about a minute.  Next, I thought I would use my fine-mesh strainer plus a cheesecloth to strain the liquid from the pulp, but the cheesecloth turned out to be more troub...