Larisa Dixon : Almond Butter and a Cleaner Nutella Recipe YAYA!

UPDATE: reposting because I made these this weekend and some of you guys were asking me about the recipes.

I don't about you guys but we are HUGE nut butter eaters here at my house. Peanut butter, Sunbutter, Almond Butter, Cashew Butter, oh you get the point! If it a nut and can be made into a "butter" we are eatin' it!

As part of my "Healthy2014 movement that's starting, clean eating is going to be a huge part of my GOALS to achieve this year. its not rocket science that you feel better when you are eating healthier right? So 2014 is the year for me to start bettering me.

Tonight I decided to make some Almond butter. I had heard it was easy to make with a food processor. Problem was I didn't own a food processor. So, I did what every normal person in this world does, I went to Facebook!, I figured one of my 600+friends might have one they aren't using and let me buy have it. Sure enough the great and wonderful Stephanie came through with one. Best part she gave it to me. Pay it Forward right? Anyone need anything I may have to give? If so leave me a comment! HA!

So here goes nothing, my making of the Almond butter...

I received some almonds from an actual California almond farmer named Brett. We met in the awesome Twitter chat that Amanda did with Blue Diamond. We were talking about how absolutely awesome Swiftwick socks are. And from the conversation I got this awesome huge back of fresh raw almonds in the mail. SCORE! You can see the bag in the background, I only used about 2 cups of almond for the butter. Ok so throw the almonds in the food processor...

Use the pulse mode until it looks like all the almonds are nice and chopped up like below.

Start your food processor on regular speed (I have 1 and 2, I used 1) The almonds will start looking like a dry cornmeal consistency, You will probably have to stop the FP a couple times and scrape down the sides in this process. It took me about 8-10 minutes of stop, scrape, start! Keep going...

After a while it will start to look like a dough ball for a second in the FP, but keep going...

A couple more minutes and the oils will actively release out of the almonds and it will start to get a creamy consistency to it. At this point I did add a pinch of salt and a pinch of cinnamon. Totally optional. You could add pretty much anything at this point, Sugar, chocolate, flavorings, etc.

Surprise you have almond butter. It will be slightly thick. If it is too thick you can add a nut oil to the mix and blend a little more and it will thin out.

Finished product. It made about as much as you find in those small PB jars at the store.

I hope this was easy enough to follow. If you have any questions, Comment below:)

Cleaner Nutella

So, my husband LOVES Nutella. Who doesn't? I thought why cant I make a cleaner Nutella? So here is what I came up with...

I went to Wal Mart crossing my fingers they had hazelnuts. Yeah not so much, but I did spot them in the mixed nut bins. So I basically picked them out. LOL

My husband gracious;y cracked these for me. I layered them on a pan in the oven on 375 for about 10 minutes. Watch them, the skins will turn a dark brown. After taking them out of the oven, use a wet towel to remove as much of the skins as possible. Don't stress about it, just as much as will come off. Put the roasted hazelnuts and do the same thing with them as the steps above for the almond butter.

Until it looks like this. You could stop right here and have hazelnut butter. But come one everyone knows hazelnuts need chocolate!

So I added a 3/4 cup of powdered sugar. You can use regular but I made a Splenda version...

(1 cup of Splenda and a tbsp of cornstarch and blended the crap out of it in my blender, alas, you have powdered Splenda. You can do this with just about any sugar substitute)

1/4 cup of unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2tsp vanilla extract

1/2tsp cinnamon

2 1/2 tbsp of almond oil (you can use any oil, even olive if you want)