In America today, food choices are abundant. Unfortunately, many choices are not healthy for our bodies to consume on a regular basis. Foods like many processed pre-packaged meals, fast food, white sugar laden foods are just a few. There are so many additives and preservatives out there as well. I have chosen to make a concerted effort to buy and cook nutritious foods for my family. This blog reflects healthy recipes and information on healthy eating. I try to reflect a balanced diet where healthy eating is the norm.
In the light of the recent peanut butter issues, I decided to try my hand at making my own homemade nut butter. I thought it couldn't be that difficult. And it wasn't. What's wonderful about making your own nut butter is that you can customize it to suit you: salt, no salt, a little sweet, not sweet at all, almond, cashew, hazelnut.........
Lightly toast the almonds in your toaster oven or regular oven. To do so, lay the almonds out on a cookie sheet style pan or baking stone. Toast at 350 degrees until lightly brown, shaking the pan after a minute or two so that they'll toast evenly. This will happen pretty quickly so you will need to keep your eye on them. Then remove from oven. When I toasted my almonds, I got them a little too brown so the nut butter has a pretty strong toasty taste to it. I'll not toast them as much next time.
Once the nuts have cooled a little, put them in a food processor and begin processing until it's the consistency you desire. Sometimes you may have to add a tad bit of oil to make it creamier. If you want to add salt or make it sweet, you need to do that while you're processing it. I added a little bit of salt to mine.
According to my research, homemade nut butter should last up to a month in the refrigerator.
I love almond butter.. almond milk.. whole almonds! :) We banned peanut butter a while ago because, in my view they are a carcinogenic. From research we did for healthier living and allowing the body to heal itself that was one of the addictive legumes they recommended cutting out of our diets. I tend to agree. I love your almond butter recipe, thanks for posting it! :)
