Sometimes You Feel Like a Nut (Butter)

Ever since The Boy ran the Tyler Rose Marathon, I've been dreaming about a local coffee shop's homemade nut butter that I enjoyed while lounging waiting for our runners to cross the finish line.

How's that for honesty? The Boy and his Best Friend were running in unseasonably warm temperatures and I was savoring (licking) every last bit of a homemade nut butter. Shameless.

The owner told me that it was made with peanuts, flax seed, sunflower seeds and olive oil. With that information, I patiently waited to get a new food processor (Hooray, Christmas!) and googled around for some recipes.

Here's what I came up with, built from the experience of many nut-butter-makers on the internet.

Mixed Nut Butter

Ingredients

• 2 cups of nuts and seeds (as desired - cashews, almonds, pecans, flax seed, sunflower seed, peanuts, sunflower, walnuts, etc)
• Olive oil (extra virgin – as needed)
• Flavorings: Salt, maple syrup, cinnamon, vanilla, etc.  (optional)

Directions

Pour nuts (any variety or mixed) in a measuring cup until they equal about two cups. Here I'm using my dream mix peanuts, flax seed and sunflower seeds. I chose non-roasted, unsalted nuts for my first effort. 

Place the nuts in a food processor and grind. Check the consistency periodically.

At first, you’ll have nothing but very finely chopped nuts. If particles build up on the sides of the container, stop (and based on an unfortunate Christmas cooking incident, I'd say this is a very important step) and scrape them down with a rubber spatula.

Allow the processor to continue running. Eventually, your nut butter will begin to clump. You may have to break up the clumps, but be patient. Sometimes a large clump will bang around for a while before it begins to break down and look creamy.

During the “clumpy” phase, you may need/want to add oil. Begin by adding one teaspoon of oil and run the processor some more. If the butter is creamy enough without it, omit the oil. It is important to be patient and give the processor a chance to make the butter without "over oiling" the mix.

Let the processor continue running until nut butter reaches desired consistency. (Length of time varies based on nut type and processor strength: 5-20 minutes.)

Make sure you take time to stand back to admire the power and stamina of your Christmas Present food processor.

If you prefer creamier butter, add more oil toward the end of processing. If chunky style is desired, just roast a few extra nuts, chop, and stir into the finished butter.

After butter is desired consistency, add flavorings. I drizzled in a couple teaspoons of local honey.

If you prefer roasted nut butter, simply place your raw nuts on a parchment or foil lined cookie sheet and roast in a 350F oven for 12 to 15 minutes, stirring once or twice to prevent burning.

Store butters in the refrigerator and use within a month (or so).

While I still have some fiddling to do to get the right balance of nut types to oil to flavorings, I can definitely say this recipe is YUM-O.

And way more filling than store-bought preprocessed nut butter. For a woman who spends far too much time thinking about food, that's a good thing.