Almond and Pepita Butters

I am in hardcore love with Almond Butter. I honestly eat the stuff every single day, a few tablespoons a day. Now I understand that most people would recoil from that, saying it "has too much fat", but my insistence is that fat is a very good thing. The only reason people really have to fear fat is because either they eat too much processed foods, which mess with your system in a plethora of ways, especially with respect to fat, or they eat too many fatty animal products. Since neither of these apply to me, I really don't care about what the USDA says about my "daily intake"(or pretty much anything else the USDA has to say either, really). Furthermore, nuts are filled with mono and unsaturated fats, which are proving to be good for heart health and proper weight control(Ahh, irony). I made my first pepita(raw pumpkin seed) butter today and I found it excellent spread on fruit. So eat up and enjoy, these butters are amazing:

Almond Butter

1 cup raw almonds(technically almonds from California are not strictly raw, they've been steamed and are ordered by law to be so in order to avoid salmonella outbreaks)

1/2 tsp sea salt(optional)

Put the almonds in a food processor. Chop the almonds for twelve to fifteen minutes until they become a smooth butter, and the following steps of the butter should be seen:

- First the butter should become a meal, and regular scrapping of the outside of the food processor is going to be necessary.

- The meal will begin to stick together and ball up and will stay like this for around half to one minute, it will them break back apart into a meal.

- The meal will quickly turn into a butter but it will need to be processed for a few more minutes to get that proper smoothness and shine that one expects from an almond butter.

This may take as little as 10 minutes, depending upon your food processor and the freshness of your almonds. As a rule, use as fresh as almond as possible because otherwise you'll have to add oil to get the proper smoothness. Do not soak the almonds before making the butter though because it will never get pas the initial meal stage; I learned that the hard way.

This butter is much faster than the almond butter:

Pepita Butter(Raw Pumpkin Seed)

1 cup pumpkin seeds

2-3 tbsp pumpkin oil(I have yet to find raw pumpkin seed oil, so I used refined sunflower oil because it doesn't have a flavor strong enough to effect the butter's flavor)

1/4-1/2 tsp sea salt

Put the pumpkin seeds in a food processor and run on high until they make a fine meal, this will only take a few minutes at most. Slowly add in the oil a tablespoon at a time until the butter becomes nice and smooth. The amount of oil will depend on the moisture content and quality of the seeds. Add the sea salt in once the desired consistency is reached and mix it one last time.

You can use either of these butters anywhere that you use peanut butter for allergy reasons or just to get a new twist to things. I'm currently searching for raw peanuts(fairly difficult to find) and will make a post about peanut butter when I finally find them.

Carrot Beet Curry Soup

My oh my, it is one delicious soup. I admit, it may sound odd at first glance but I assure you, it is one of the most amazing soups I've had in a while. The sweetness of the carrots and golden beets, along with the curry and coconut milk make an amazingly filling meld of goodness. I originally found a recipe online for a vegetable curry that they decided to make into a soup and I decided to accommodate the basic idea to what I have on hand. It's an easy soup to make and you will not regret it.

Golden Beet & Carrot Curry Soup

3 large golden beets, cut into around .5 x 1 inch segments(wing it)
1 bunch of carrots(around five or six, I believe), cut into ≈1 inch segments
1 large onion, cut into crescents
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbsp fresh ginger, minced
2-3 tbsp Yellow Curry Powder(I opted toward the larger amount, as I love curry powder)
1/2-1 tsp salt
The zest of one lemon, cut into thin strips*

2-3 cups water
1 can of coconut milk
Lemon juice, to taste



*If you have lemongrass, cut the amount of ginger in half and omit the lemon zest. Use one six-inch piece of stalk, quartered and sliced thin instead.

There really was no methodology to making this soup to be honest; I had started cooking the beets in the water and decided I didn't want another repetitive beet & carrot soup so I winged making this instead. Basically, throw everything except the lemon juice in a large pot and simmer it until the beets and carrots are soft, then run it through a food processor. Add more salt or lemon juice to taste if you wish. It should probably take 30 minutes or so. Serve hot.

Harvest Co-Op

I was literally giddy with joy today. Why? Because I not only found Eden Organic tomatoes(the only canned tomatoes I've personally seen that are only tomatoes, no citric acid crap), I also found some Willow Run soybean margarine at the same place. What is this nice place you ask? Why, the Harvest Co-Op Market, right by Central Square in Cambridge, MA. I know, not very useful for anybody who's not in the Boston metro area, but very useful to us(it's the only place I know of that sells either of these goods). Also, the place being a co-op has fringe benefits:
- Community owned and proceeds go to them, not some unknown corporation
- Have local produce when in season
- Mostly fair-trade and organic
- Has a nice cafe that serves many different teas
- Bulk spice area(I don't buy spices in bulk usually due to contamination concerns. However, I always buy Bay Leaves and whole seeds in bulk, as they are always extremely overpriced, especially Bay leaves).
- They're nice people.

They also have white willow bark in bulk form, as to make a tea from. As far as I know, the tea is supposed to be fairly bitter but still have the anti-inflammatory and analgesic properties. They also sell gelatin and vegetable capsules(which I do not trust) in bulk, so I guess one could make their own white willow bark pills, if you had a way of measuring the weight needed for each pill. I just don't know how safe it is to buy the herb in bulk.

It's a bit of a hike from Boston College, but it was well worth it. Check the nice people out.