I had the luxury of spending the last two weeks with my neices and my nephew. My nephew, who is now the b-i-g 4, has peanut allergies. All of the kids are all very close in age, which means they play with each other a lot. To avoid a reaction with close contact to peanuts, we do our very best to keep all foods made with peanut oil away and use Organic Sunbutter from Swanson as much as possible. We make puppy chow, special K bars and all sorts of fun kid friendly treats.
He inspired me to try to make my own almond butter. A jar in the average grocery store costs around $8 dollars, yikes!
I did a little research and found some great health benefits to eating almond butter:
1. It helps to maintain healthy blood pressure
2. It helps to control blood sugar
3. It’s rich in antioxidants
4. It may even help with weight control!
This recipe was by far the easiest recipe I have ever made. I was worried about the power of my food processor, but everything turned out great.
Organic Almond Butter Recipe
Ingredients:
2 bags of Swanson Health Products Raw Organic Almonds
1 tablespoon of Swanson Health Products Organic Olive Oil
Directions:
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Pour your two bags of almonds into a shallow baking dish and bake for 8-10 minutes. (Sidenote: if you buy almonds already oven roasted this step can be skipped.) After baking, let your almonds cool for a couple of minutes, no need to burn yourself! Pour half of your almonds into a food processor. Let it run for a couple of minutes until they're chopped. Now add the other half of your almonds and let it run for another minute. You will start to see a thicker consistency as the almonds continue to be chopped finer and finer.
You will need to remove the lid of your food processor every couple of minutes to scrape the sides and stir up your almonds. Continue pulsing until it has reached more of a peanut butter like consistency and add your tablespoon of Olive Oil. Everyone likes their butter at a different texture, so the time varies on how long you mix.
Source: http://healthmad.com/nutrition/the-phenomenal-health-benefits-of-almond-butter/
Let me know what you think! Almond butter is one of my favorite natural food products and goes great on apples and bananas, as well as a replacement for peanut butter.
