down to the core: quite the process

I apologize that I haven't blogged in over a week, I think that's the longest span of time I've gone without blogging yet! But midterms are going on and I've been pretty focused on studying, rather than trying new recipes.

Yesterday I wanted to make myself almond butter though, I saw a recipe on Pinterest for it and I thought it'd be a cool recipe to try. Pintrest then led me to a great website (it's actually called greatist.com) where I found a lot of information about almonds and so many more foods. Almonds are the most nutritionally dense nut (they offer the highest concentration of overall nutrients per serving). They're a good source of potassium, calcium, vitamin E, magnesium, phosphorous, and iron. Just a fair warning though, as good as almonds are they should be eaten in small portions.

Anyway, if you remember from my last post about the hummus I made, I don't have a good-quality food processor. I was really impatient to start this recipe though, so I began it using the mini processor and splitting up the ingredients into thirds in order to fit into the processor. As I continued, the processor over-heated and I had to stop, which was a little frustrating.

So my mom and I went to Kohl's once and for all to buy a new food processor that can handle more ingredients at a time and for a longer duration of time. We found a food processor that wasn't too expensive, orange (a nice pop of color), and could hold 3 cups worth of ingredients, and I could not wait to get home and continue my processing.

But the predicament continued. I put all the almond mixture (soon-to-be-butter) in the new food processor, and it wouldn't turn on. Neither my mom nor dad could get the food processor to start, so I had to revert back to the mini Cuisinart and slowly process the mixture, dividing it up into three sections. Eventually I successfully made this almond butter, and if I do say so myself it tastes delicious. Nonetheless, I've learned my lesson to not take a food processor for granted. If you are lucky enough to have a working food processor, be grateful and enjoy some homemade almond butter. Hopefully this process (yes, pun intended) is far easier for you with this knowledge of my own experience.

Here's what you'll need:
1 cup roasted almonds
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tbsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tbsp olive oil (to start - you may need to add more)

1. Put the almonds in a food processor and process until finely ground.