This year it feels as though we are cheating winter in these parts! Although the morning air is crisp, the afternoon temperatures are still quite warm. There’s nothing that my littlest peanut and I like to do more than go for an ‘adventure’ hike especially this time of year when we can explore AND enjoy the fleeting warmth of the sun in the Northern Hemisphere.
Of course, I never leave home without my camera, AND I just had to share some of the most beautiful moments of fall that we captured. What’s fall (or spring) looking like in your corner of the world?
Ok, enough with the beautiful distractions, on to what I was really going to write about… 🙂
Last year was the first year that my kids’ school implemented nut restrictions. Prior to that there were no children with nut allergies, so being a small independent school they determined no restrictions were needed. Enter year 2 of nut restrictions and I’m not gonna lie, this has really thrown off my game! Long gone are the days of snacks containing trail mix or almond butter with apples. In no way did I want to put the anaphylactic child in any danger, so I had to get creative! After double checking with the school, I learned that seeds were ok to send with the kiddies – so I got to thinking…sunflower seeds could behave just like almonds if I were to whip them into a butter so I got to experimenting. My results were amazingly delicious, in fact I couldn’t keep little fingers out of the jar!
For this recipe you will need a food processor with some chops, because it’s gonna make some magic happen! I use this one and it sure does the trick!
**An important preliminary step to really amp up the digestibility of the seeds is to soak then dehydrate them. You can read more about why I always do this important step here.
Ingredients:
3 cups sunflower seeds soaked and dehydrated (this is the dehydrator I use)
3 tbsp honey
1/2 tsp cinnamon
pinch of sea salt
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp coconut oil
1. Soak and dehydrate sunflower seeds. Here’s the how and why to Soak Your Nuts and Lose the Gas.
2. Toss the sunflower seeds into the bowl of a high powered food processor. I use this one.
3. Twirl the seeds around. They will go through several stages. This is the ‘flour’ stage. 
4. The mixture will start to look butter-ish now but keep going! 
5. The mixture will turn into a ball. I like this stage of events because we are getting closer to our yummy butter!
6. Keep going! We are looking for the oils in the seeds to release. You’ll know it when you see it.
7. …AND….we have blast off! Look at the oils releasing! Twirl it around for another minute then…
8. Dip a spoon in and see if it’s drippy. If so, it’s ready! Now you can add the cinnamon, honey and coconut oil. Twirl that around for about a minute and voila! *NB the butter will thicken up slightly with the addition of the extras.
