Homemade nut butter - first attempt!

Yay! Spring is here....? Kind of... maybe... OK maybe not. It was raining this morning but not too cold - and then somehow, while I was having lunch with some friends at Bulldog in Northeast, it went from fairly nice to FREEZING cold and windy just during the time we were in the restaurant. Crazy! Now it is sleeting, and we're supposed to get 2 inches of snow overnight. Chalk up another one for Minnesota weather.

But seriously enough complaining - I'd been thinking about going for a run this afternoon, but with the freezing rain that obviously wasn't happening, so I took tonight as an evening in - finished a paper I was working on, watched a couple episodes of Dexter, and whipped up some homemade almond butter! I've been meaning to try homemade nut butter ever since finally getting a food processor last month, but for some reason I felt too intimidated to actually do it. Then I was inspired by Amie's delicious looking recipe last week and decided to take the plunge.

Those poor nuts have no idea what's in store for them...

Looking good

We had some jar spillage...don't judge.

ALMOND BUTTER
I hesitate to even call this a recipe - it's just nuts and oil, and possibly magic. But here it is anyways!
- 2 cups roasted, unsalted almonds
- 1/2 T vegetable oil
- 1 tsp honey

That's the base to start with... most recipes I found added wayyy more oil than this but I decided to cut back and I'm glad I did, it turned out plenty smooth without the excess oil. I also added:
- 1/2 tsp vanilla
- 1/2ish tsp cinnamon (Sorry! Didn't measure this, I just sort of went for it, recklessly like the rebel that I am.)

Process the almonds in the food processor until finely ground/starting to clump, add the oil and any other ingredients that sound good to you at the moment (within reason obviously) - and just let the little choppy blades do their work for a few minutes. Seriously, it's that easy.

I'm sure you could also add salt, or maple syrup, or some other spices, or flaxseed meal... the possibilities are endless, this is just a blank canvas.

Hoping for warmer weather soon! Granted, sleet and wind don't seem quite so awful when you have warm, creamy cinnamony nut butter to ease the pain, but I am looking for an excuse to break out the dresses and sandals :)