Hello Almonds, meet my buddy The Blender

   I have never purchased almond butter. One day I had some delicious almonds in our pantry and a desire to create something. This led to me looking up almond butter on the internet, experimenting with my own, and becoming absolutely addicted. Truly, I'm in love.

Almond Butter
   I always buy my almonds at good ole Big Lots or Dollar General. They seem to have the best deals along with many other treasures I stumble upon (like cute and cheap holiday decorations!). Normally, I use roasted, salted almonds. Unfortunately, whoever the person is who salts the almonds before they're packaged has a very heavy hand.  Using raw almonds I can control how salty my almond butter is and, well, being the control freak that I am, that pleases me. I've discovered that roasted almonds work SO much better than just plane raw ones straight of of the container so I roasted them on a cookie sheet at 350 degrees for 10 minutes or so.

   When they came out of the oven I let them sit for just a few minutes before pouring them into my trusty blender. Before turning on the blender I added a little over a teaspoon of sea salt. Then I turned on the blender and the grinding began.

   I've learned that staring at the blender only makes the whole process take longer, so now I walk away while they almonds are ground and keep myself busy with school work or cleaning. I'm pretty good at zoning out the annoying high pitched sound, but it drives my poor husband crazy. I've learned it's best to make almond butter when he's working.  I return every few minutes to scrape down the sides and stir it all up.

Lookin' good

   Mmmmmm perfection. Today marks the date of the best almond butter I've ever created. The amount of salt is so perfect. Just enough to taste it, but not overpowering to the wonderful and slightly sweet taste of the almonds.
   To store it I put it in one the container the almonds came in and keep it in the fridge.
   I can't wait to have it for breakfast on some sliced apples with cinnamon tomorrow. What better way to start off the week???