Homemade Pecan Butter

  You know those days when nothing goes right...I mean absolutely nothing and even the smallest of tasks seem impossible. That was how the last few days have been for me. I woke up feeling sick on Saturday (and later realized I was having a lupus flare up), had no energy, but I was a little productive because I made a chinese chicken stir fry for lunch on Sunday and made oven baked chicken on Monday night for dinner {both recipes will be posted soon}.

Meet Cowboy Cash the Bunny. He got the leftover toast with some pecan butter on it and he loved it!

  But the simplest recipe I wanted to make was homemade almond butter and both times it turned out horrible! The basic idea is to throw some nuts in a food processor and blend until it becomes a creamy nutty spread, but the first two times the mixture went from the "ball" stage to stay a glob instead of turning into creamy butter..even after 18 minutes of blending! I have no idea why even though I think it may have been that the nuts were old and I didn't toast them. So after 2 failed attempts and wasting over 3 cups of nuts I decided that then next batch I made was going to be turn out correctly.

So why am I making my own nut butters?
 A) because paying $8 for a jar of almond butter that I go through like crazy because it's my preferred choice for toast (peanut butter is now my least favorite spread) and because it's a key ingredient in tasty treats like my paleo muffins, chocolate cakies, and zucchini brownies is crazy.
B) My mom recently made a trip to Sam's and brought home 3 large bags of nuts plus we just got a membership for Costco's so it's a good way to use the nuts.
 C) I can experiment with different flavor combos and make up new recipes using the butters.

Pecan Butter is perfect on a piece of cinnamon raisin toast. 

 There is a process to make nut butter: roast the nuts (optional, but I do it), cool the nuts, blend in a food processor until it becomes a fine powder, then a crumbly mix, next it turns into a ball, after blending for a few more minutes the mixture will get creamy, and you are done. You can season the butter with cinnamon like I did or add some sweetness with sugar or maple syrup; just look around the internet for homemade nut butter recipes and you'll see that the flavor combinations are endless.

 Homemade Pecan Butter

2 1/2 cup pecans
pinch of cinnamon
maple syrup (see notes)

1. Line a pan with parchment paper and lay the nuts in a single layer. Bake at 300F for about 8-12 minutes, or until the nuts are fragrant and lightly golden. (Note: nuts contain a lot of oils which mean they can go from golden to burnt really fast so keep an eye on the nuts.) Let the nuts cool completely.
2. Pour the nuts and cinnamon into a large food processor and blend on high. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as many times as you need. The nuts will turn into a fine mixture before becoming crumbly and finally it will become creamy after 8-15 minutes of blending (time varies depending on how much nut butter you are making and the size of you processor).

This recipe will make a little over 1 cup of pecan butter and is best kept in the fridge in a sealed container.

Note:
-If you want to add some sweetness to your nut butter, pour 2-3 tbsp of maple syrup over the nuts before toasting them in the oven.