Happy Monday!
For those of you who are already back-to-school/back-to-work and aren't feel so happy about Mondays, here's something to cheer you up - one of you just won Tropical Traditions Virgin Coconut Oil!
The winner of the 32oz Tropical Traditions Gold Label Virgin Coconut Oil is Kim Cudd. Congratulations!
Other than winning, which is a pretty great way to kick off a week, I'd say discovering a bunch of healthy new nut butters is a pretty great Monday activity!
Ethical Bounty makes raw, vegan, gluten-free stone-ground nut butters with minimal ingredients for maximal nutrition.
They make gourmet nut butters so, in addition to the standard almond and cashew specialty nut butters, they also make macadamia butter, pecan butter, brazil nut butter, and flavored nut butters like pineapple macadamia nut butter and cinnamon raisin cashew butter. You can check out their website for their full nut butter line up.
I tried a bunch of different flavors:
Cashew Butter:
It was really creamy, with minimal oil separation (as seems to be the trend for cashew butters) and the buttery, mild cashew flavor that makes cashew a great alternative PB&J butter.
Pineapple Macadamia Butter:
I really liked this and my 7-year-old sister loved it! My mom really enjoyed it, too - none of us have had this flavor combination before (apparently it's a popular Polynesian flavor combo?) but the macadamia and pineapple really complemented each other well. There was just the right amount of each flavor, with neither flavor overwhelming the other.
Macadamia Butter:
This was super creamy and great with carob chips on bread for a fun sweet snack!
Vanilla Almond Butter:
There was some oil separation, but nothing a quick stir couldn't fix. Oil separation is, after all, normal in raw nut butters. The vanilla was a nice change from the standard almond butter and the almond flavor was still nice and strong.
Pistachio Butter:
This was my first time having pistachio butter. It's more of a savory nut butter - good for lunch, but not such a breakfast nut butter for most people. It's not sweet, but it is very flavorful.
And it's pretty! You can make a yummy Grinch sandwich :)
Pecan Butter:
It has a lot of oil separation, but that's a good thing - it means you can know that what you're eating is just natural ground nuts with no hydrogenated oils to falsely bind everything together. And it's a strong pecan flavor (all of their nut butters are so flavorful) so if you pair it with maple syrup on an english muffin, it tastes like pecan pie.
And the next was my favorite!
Almond Butter:
The plain almond butter was just so amazing! It's less sweet than usual almond butters, but therefore has a super intense almond flavor - it's like eating pure almonds.
It's the perfect accompaniment for bread!
Their nut butters all come in full size jars, like this:
I like how it's a small business with regular people (who have a talent for making tasty nut butters!) make spreads out of really simple, nutritious ingredients.
I always try to support small businesses and businesses with morals in my purchases!
Anyway, this jar was of their best-selling nut butter: cinnamon raisin cashew butter.
There aren't super many raisins in it, but there are enough (and they are chopped small enough) to give that great brunch taste. It's cinnamon-y and just the right hint of sweet.
If you spread it on a slice of multigrain bread, it tastes just like an oatmeal raisin cookie!
Is it important to you to buy locally, or from small businesses, or from businesses with certain moral principles? No judgment, either way, but I'm just interested in knowing what guides purchasing decisions for other people and if they're the same kind of things that guide my decision!
What's your favorite kind of nut butter?
What's your favorite kind of pie? I'd say pecan pie, a la mode, is mine! It's my favorite Thanksgiving food.
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