Early Morning Pumpkin Seed Butter

It is 4:50am and I am trying to eat breakfast and have a cup of coffee. Why am I up so early? At 1:30pm today I'm going into the Manitoba Clinic to have an Upper GI Endoscopy. 17+ years of digestive distress and they're finally having a look inside (no bitterness there, eh?) When I was 11 years old I had a Barium Swallow. This showed signs of inflammation for which I was given some meds. There was no follow up. I suppose what happened (why I never had this testing before) is that the doctors felt there was not enough cause for this more invasive test and that IBS was the best diagnosis. However, symptoms grow, change, and mutate. My new GI whom I like WAY more than any I've had in the past (he treats me like a real live human being) has agreed to perform the test. I'm fairly certain this is mostly to satisfy my own curiosity and needs. Whether or not we learn anything from it, at least I'll know that someone has looked!

OK back to the early morning. The patient (me) must fast from all foods, solid & liquid (INCLUDING WATER, AHHHHH!) for 8 hours prior to testing. My appointment being in the afternoon makes it much harder to sleep away those hours, and makes for a longer fasting period. UNLESS the patient sets her alarm for 4:30am to get up and have a light breakfast, coffee (must fight off the eminent caffeine withdrawal), and as much water as one could possibly consume. Oh and uh right a blog to pass the time, so here's what I discovered this week. 

Many of my grocery trips used to consist of trying to find my favourite jar of over priced pumpkin seed butter. That was until I found out how easy it is to make your own seed butters at home!

What you'll need:

2 cups roasted pumpkin seeds
3 tbsp oil of your choice (I used flax, because I thought it would compliment the pumpkin seeds well)
1/4 tsp salt (or less, I thought the end result could do without it)

Directions:

Simply roast 2 cups of raw pumpkin seeds, or buy them roasted if you can find them unsalted. Don't know how to roast? It's easy. Wet the seeds down by placing them in a large measuring cup or other vessel, fill with water and drain. Place the seeds in a ungreased pan (non-stick is better) over medium heat, and roast until they begin to pop and brown a little.

 

Place the seeds in a food processor and process until they become a fine powder

 

Add in the oil one tablespoon at a time and process for about 30 seconds after you add each portion

 

My light morning cooking snack. I made this up last Sunday morning.

 

 

Continue processing until it all becomes smooth. Like this!

 

Transfer to a sealed container and store in the fridge. 

It tastes amazing fresh and warm from the roasting, but should be stored in the fridge to keep from spoiling.

Ok it is now the cut off time and I'm going to attempt to go back to bed as to hopefully sleep away some of this non-water time!