Butter Me Up!

It's the eve of the big race day (I'm running the MVP half marathon bright and early), and I needed to get out some of my nervous energy. I know I'm ready for the run itself, but I can never get over the whole butterflies in the stomach thing beforehand.... Anyways, I was spending some of said energy cleaning the kitchen and noticed that, alas, we had no more cashew butter or almond butter! This, my friends, is a shame. Henceforth, I hurried up the cleaning and hied myself to the process of making up a couple of batches o' buttery goodness!

I know that many people out there are perfectly content with buying those jars from the store. I am NOT one of them! Why should I spend $7-8 on some junk that's been sitting on a shelf for who know's how long? No, no... I urge you all to pamper yourselves and take the extra few minutes to make it yourselves.

Homemade Nut Butter

(On the left is Cashew Butter and on the right is Cinnamon Almond Butter)

Ingredients:

• 15 oz Roasted Nuts (use whatever kind you'd like: peanuts, almonds, cashews, etc)
• A few tablespoons Oil (I use melted coconut oil, but peanut or sunflower oil both work well too)
• 1 tsp Salt
• 1 tbsp Sweetener of choice (I love using raw honey or maple syrup, but agave works too)
• Cinnamon (optional, but I love the taste of it in the almond butter)

Method:

• Place nuts, salt and honey in the bowl of a food processer. Process for 1 minute. 
• Scrape down the sides of the bowl. 
• Place the lid back on and continue to process while slowly drizzling in the oil and process until the mixture is smooth, 1 1/2 to 2 minutes.
• Put in a container to save for later or eat giant spoonfuls right then and there.

See folks? It's not that hard! Sure there's a little cleanup involved, but the flavor of this stuff is SOO much better than anything you'd get from the store. Not to mention that there's TONS of possibilities for flavor combos. Like: maple walnut butter, maple almond, cinnamon cashew, chocolate almond (add some cocoa powder), chocolate hazelnut, macadamia almond cashew bonanza! I could go on forever... So come on now and butter me up with some homemade nut butter!