The Best Kind of Butter

As I scraped the bottom of my almond butter jar, I cringed at the thought of forking out $11.00 to replenish it. That was until I remembered the excess amount of almonds that were taking up 3/4 of my freezer --- My mother seems to think that I can go through a Costco sized bag of almonds each month. Yes, they are a great source of calcium but they're no cookie and I'm not about to spread whole almonds on to my toast in the morning. So instead of breaking it to her, I just continue filling up the nooks and crannies in my freezer with them.

Well, mother. They have finally come in to use.

Instead of purchasing yet another jar of almond butter, I decided to make my own.

I started by preheating the oven to 350 degrees and laying out a layer of almonds on a baking sheet.


I then roasted them in the oven until they were lightly toasted and my entire pad had an almond aroma to it.

This took about ten to fifteen minutes --- I may have roasted them a little too long though.

After cooling off the almonds, I threw them in to the food processor. I ground up all of the nuts in one go; it may have been more effective to do a couple of batches.

It took awhile for the almonds to turn in to butter as they went through a few phases --- crumbs to paste to butter.

The butter turned out quite amazing.

You can experiment with this recipe by using basically any kind of nut --- and it's the healthiest form of nut butter as there are no added oils, sugars, salts, or preservatives

Herb Encrusted Tofu

After hitting up Kensington Market the other day, I returned home with an aray of spices as I finally found a place that sells them bulk! Since then my meals have turned from blah to amazing...

This herb encrusted tofu is a take on a recipe that a friend just showed me. Even though I didn't use any of the required ingredients (excluding the tofu,) it turned out quite nicely!

I started out with a bowl of cumin, tumeric, dried chili flakes, oats, and flaked coconut. From there I went on to "encrust" the tofu...


To brown each side and enhance the spices, I fried the tofu block in some canola oil.

After removing the nicely browned tofu, I added some kale, spinach, arugula, and mushrooms to the pan in order to soak up the spice-infused oil. I also added some soy sauce.

I dipped the tofu in some Sriracha, of course.


If you're looking for a seriously flavourful tofu dish, this is the one. Feel free to use your own mix of ingredients to encrust the tofu; I did!