 In the afternoon when that 3 o'clock energy slump hits, there's nothing I like better to re-energize than with some apple slices and almond butter. It's my favorite. But sometimes when I go to the grocery store, I gasp at the price of almond butter. So I've learned that I can make my own almond butter at home, customize it to my own taste and save a lot of money. So I'm gonna show you how I do that right now. I have two and a quarter cups of almonds. You can use raw almonds or you can buy roasted unsalted almonds. And I buy them in the bulk section, so I save even more money that way. If I get the raw almonds, I just toast them on a baking sheet 325 degrees for 10 to 12 minutes until you can just smell that the fragrance of the toasted almonds. Let them cool a little bit and then put them into your food processor. So today I've got half and half. I've got some almonds that I've toasted and then I've got some roasted unsalted almonds. So I'm using both today. That's just what I happen to have. And I am going to just process this just for a couple of minutes until it gets powdery and kind of dry-ish. So I'll show you what it looks like. It doesn't take long. Maybe it just took a minute and you can see that it's still dry. It hasn't started turning to butter yet and a little bit powdery, just real finely chopped. So to that, I'm going to add 3 quarter teaspoon of kosher salt or coarse salt and a tablespoon of oil. Now you'll want to use a real neutral flavored oil such as grape seed oil or safflower oil. You don't want anything that has a distinct flavor to it. You wouldn't want to use olive oil. So I'm going to start with just one tablespoon and today I'm using safflower oil. I've got the salt in there and now I'm going to process it until it starts to get creamy. So now remember, you just need to be patient until your almond butter gets nice and creamy. It can take up to 10 minutes, like I said earlier. And at this point, remember I said I could customize it to taste just the way I want it to. I'm going to add two tablespoons of honey because I love that honey flavor in my almond butter. I've got two tablespoons and I'm going to add just a little bit of cinnamon, just half a teaspoon. You can always add more but I just like a real subtle cinnamon flavor. Now when you add anything like honey or cinnamon, when you add anything to your almond butter, it can cause it to seize up. So you might need to add a little extra oil. I'm just going to pulse this a little bit to blend it and I'll see if I need to add more oil. Now all I need is my apple and it's ready for my afternoon slump. Now this almond butter, just store it in a jar tightly sealed. I usually keep it at room temperature but you could also keep it in the refrigerator. You're saving money and you still have delicious almond butter customized to your own taste. I'm Sue Dodin sharing good food for Good Life 365.