Nuts!

It was time to make more nut butter but this time a slightly different approach was taken.  We love chunky, but Aldi only had creamy peanut and almond butters.  It can be hard to find natural versions without salt or sugar added, so we buy what we can find when we need it.  The almond butter was smooth, with palm oil and sugar.  In order to deal with those undesirables, a compromise was forged.  Chopped walnuts, pecans, almonds and flax seeds were used to create chunks, and also to make more "butter."

We'd never made peanut or any sort of nut butter in our Vitamix, but it was done this time to negate some of the sugar/palm oil in the small jar of almond butter.  Half the nuts were put in the blender with some peanut oil.  One fear was that it would be too hard to get it all out once it was ground.  But that part wasn't too bad.

The butter wasn't particularly smooth -- which was fine for this application since chunkiness was desired.  It was dumped into the stand mixer along with the other half of the chopped nuts.

Once it was blended well, it was the perfect texture and consistency.  The Microcosm is totally dependent on the Vitamix blender and the Kitchenaid mixer.

When it was all said and done, the batch yielded one extra jar once the home-made butter was incorporated.  This batch will last for probably two months.  Making peanut butter from scratch isn't much of a money saver -- it costs less per pound to buy than to make. However, when you get into other nuts, such as almonds, walnuts, and pecans, the savings are substantial.  Working in a variety of nuts means a more complete nutritional balance of oils....

... and when it's spread on home-made nut/raising toast, it's super tasty too!