Sun Butter

I am obsessed with peanut butter. I love it in cookies, on bread, in a smoothie, you name it! So it only makes sense that my son would be showing signs of sensitivty to all nuts while I'm nursing. I started looking up alternatives for peanut butter and found that you could make a sun butter out of sunflower seeds. Even though they probably aren't going to be making an reese sun butter cups any time soon, this will have to do for now until our son (hopefully) grows out of his allergies.

I've also read that sun butter has 1/3 the saturated fats compared to peanut butter and has more nutrients, especiall fiber.So, this is what you'll need:

• Sunflower seeds, say WHAT . . . I know, who would have guessed. I used 2 cups of unsalted, unroasted sunflower seeds for this recipe.
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• 1-2 Tbsp canola oil
• 1-2 tsp honey (optional) I didn't add this to mine because I thought I may not always want the honey flavor, but if you do choose to put it in there, it is really yummy! Probably don't need the sugar if you put 2 tsp of honey in it.

Toast the sunflower seeds in the oven for 15-20 minutes at 350 degrees. You don't want them to change color too much, because that will make them too dry. I did it enough to get that roasted flavor.Put the sunflower seeds, sugar, and salt in a food processor. Process for about 5 minutes. Scrap the bowl every now and then.This is what mine looked like after 5 minutes. It'll start getting a little moist and start sticking together. Now you can add the oil. Add 1 Tablespoon at a time. Blend for another 3-5 minutes, or until your sun butter is the consistency you prefer.

Find a nice mason jar to store your sun butter in and keep refrigerated. I'm not sure how long this will last. I probably wont eat it too fast, so I'll keep an eye on it.