A few months ago I tried making my own almond butter, and much to my surprise it was incredibly easy and absolutely delicious!  Since that day forward, Jamie and I have not purchased a jar of almond butter (and we go through a lot!) but each weekend we roast almonds and whip up a batch to last us the week. (for us the perfect ratio is 3-1)

A couple of weeks ago, we thought we would experiment with mixing pecans in with our almonds.  Well, let me tell you, it changed how we look at nut butter forever!  The combination of roasted almonds and roasted pecans just cannot be beat.  Needless to say, it is our new favourite and it is now this combination that we make each weekend.

Last weekend, we were invited over to our friends Kim and Ryan’s for dinner.  We asked numerous times what we could bring, but we were told to just bring ourselves.  Now I am a little old school when it comes to being invited over to someone’s place for dinner, and I always feel the need to either contribute to dinner (dessert or an appetizer) or bring a hostess gift to thank our hosts for having us over.

Now the dinner they served was absolutely amazing!  Red wine braised beef served with asparagus and fried polenta.  Delicious!  In fact, it was so good that we all had seconds 🙂  For dessert they served up fresh strawberries with Cointreau and cracked pepper.  It was incredible.  Strawberries and pepper may seem a bit out there, but once you have one bite, you will be converted.

Anyway, back to the Pecan Almond Butter.  Since they insisted that we couldn’t bring anything, Jamie and I were trying to figure out what we could bring over as a hostess gift, and then it hit us.  Of course, we could share this fabulous nut butter that we make on a regular basis.  So, instead of roasting enough nuts for one batch, we doubled the nuts, and proceeded to make a jar for Kim and Ryan to enjoy.

The next day, we received messages from both of them, letting us know that they loved it!  In fact, Ryan has now put in a standing order for more 🙂

So now, I am thinking that a jar of Pecan Almond Butter might just be the perfect hostess gift!  I will be able to tell how many of our friends think the same by the number of dinner invites we will get after this is posted 😉

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Adapted from:
Homemade Almond Butter

Ingredients:

• 3 cups shelled raw/natural almonds
• 1 cup shelles raw/natural pecans
  *Makes about 2 1/4 cups of pecan almond butter

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 300°F.
2. Spread the almonds and pecans out in a single layer on parchment lined baking sheet and roast for 20-30 minutes until fragrant and slightly darker in colour.
3. Remove from oven and let cool completely.
4. Transfer the cooled almonds to a food processor and blend on highest setting for 1-2 minutes to finely grind them to a powder. Scrape down the sides of the container.
5. Continue to process the nuts an additional 3-4 minutes until the oils start to be released, and a smooth, creamy, runny paste is formed.
6. Transfer the pecan almond butter to an airtight glass container and store in the refrigerator. Keeps for 1 month (but really, it won’t last that long 🙂 )

* Note – If you want chunky pecan almond butter, remove a generous scoop of the chopped nuts from the food processor before it turns into a powder. Set aside. Fold it to the creamy almond butter before storing.