Caught with my hand in the SunButter® Jar: My First Product Review

I used a long handled beverage spoon to retrieve the last remnants from the bottom of the jar. A little part of me sighed at the realization that there was no more to be had. It's gone? I thought, slightly frowning. Already?

SunButter® (source)

For over a month I had been making my own nut/seed butters. 2 1/2 cups of any nut or seed in the pantry will last me about a week once transformed into a creamy spread. After my sun butter recipe was such a hit, I received this email from SunButter®:

Good morning!
Thanks for your note on your blog. You're wonderful. You know..... in the spirit of blogginess (is that a word), I'm wondering if you'd ever consider authoring a guest post for the SunButter® blog? I'd love to share your story/perspective, and of course a few recipes if you're so inclined...

Let me know?

And take care. Happy weekending!

SunButter® is an amazing product developed by SunGold Foods, Inc., whose parent company Red River Commodities looked for innovative ways to use the sunflower seed after a lower quality (and thus cheaper) kernel was popularized in the market during the 90’s and early 2000s. With help from the USDA, RRC took two years to create the perfect peanut butter substitute in a peanut-free and tree nut-free environment. 

Today this alternative to nut butter can be found in a wide selection of grocery chains and health food stores, as well as being used in school lunch programs that have decided to go peanut/tree nut-free.

And wouldn’t you know it, there was a flavor that I could thoroughly enjoy.

Leftover Smoothie Oatmeal with SunButter® & additional toppings

Elizabeth, the lovely person who sent me the email above, and I messaged back and forth for a couple of days until this shining moment came in my inbox:

Oh I'd love to have you review ours. What's your mailing address and I'll send you a jar!

It took me a couple of seconds to comprehend that this was going to be my first official product review on Meals with Morri, but once I did I was beyond ecstatic to do it. Upon receiving the jar (and the nice note that came with it) in the mail, I relished in knowing there was sun butter on the market that was organic and unsweetened.  

Two of my favorite things in one 16-ounce jar, and perfect for those weeks I'm at the health store and don't have a batch I made at home waiting for me.

Once you open the lid and remove the foil casing, it doesn’t take much effort to fold back in the oil that occurs from natural separation. It is beautifully smooth and silky, like a softer creamy peanut butter that – wait for it – tastes like roasted sunflower seeds.

It’s one of those products that you can literally eat from the jar, one that doesn’t need anything but its sole ingredient to be delicious and nutritious. I put it on my daily apple. I stirred it in my oatmeal. I played around with using it as an ingredient in my vegan cheese sauce (a recipe still in the works). I ate it with raw buckwheat granola and banana and hemp seeds.

I even made salad dressing.*

My only hope for SunButter® is they incorporate more unsweetened and organic products in their line. I’d really like a crunchy version… or a honey/maple syrup sweetened version… or a seasonal flavor version…

It was such a delight to review this product, but if you have any questions regarding anything about the company, where you can buy it, or additional flavors, feel free to contact them. They also have a page with a variety of yummy recipes to try (warning: some recipes contain gluten, soy, and cane sugar). And if you happen to find yourself simply using your fingers when there isn’t a spoon or knife in sight to get a taste, don’t worry about it.

I did it too.

Ginger Lime SunButter® Salad Dressing

96 g Organic Unsweetened SunButter®
Juice of 2 Limes
120 ml Filtered water
1 tsp. Ground ginger
1/4 tsp. Garlic powder
1/4 tsp. Sea salt

Place all of the ingredients into the blender and mix until thoroughly combined.**

Makes around a cup of dressing, or 9 – 12 servings.

*This dressing is also amazing sauce on chicken.
**I used a blender stick and mixed the ingredients in a 2-cup measuring cup, though your commercial blender (or whisk) should work just as well.

A Little Bit of Philosophy in Sun Butter

Before you read any further, I must ask that you pay no attention to the background of the photos. The blurred, artistically cropped things of food surrounding the sun butter are not important right now. What is important is that little glob of sunshine smeared on the still-warm dish. The littlest things in life, at least for me this week, are the most significant.

Thus, sun butter.

Sun butter is that holy grail of spread that took me so long to find and create to my liking. I didn’t want sun butter (or sunflower seed butter, but I like its abbreviation better) that had additional oils or sweeteners, and I didn’t particularly care if it wasn’t raw. I wanted something that stuck to the roof of my mouth just like any nut butter and taste what it really was: sunflower seeds.

There are a lot of great recipes out there for sun butter, though I find in my search through cyber space a twisted hope that I don’t find it. If you go on an adventure to find something and come back empty-handed, that is where your creativity, ambition, and strength to make do come out to the light. So what if you don’t get exactly what you wanted? Sometimes getting what you want is the last thing you need. Sometimes you do get what you want and realize it wasn’t what you were hoping for. Sometimes it just takes a little more effort to get there, perhaps with more twists and turns along the way.

Sun butter has become the focus of my philosophical “aha!” moment this morning. Here is this dollop of brown gloop just sitting there at the center of whatever I happen to put it on, and I get lost in its significance. 

I’m learning to break things down into manageable blocs of focus throughout the day. There’s time reserved for meditation, for studying, for classes, and for my part-time job. There’s time reserved for blogging, for eating, for exercising, and other things. From my week enjoying a spoonful of the sunny stuff I learned to not stress over being perfect the first time around (case in point, the delicious “flop” food the sun butter is so delicately placed on), and to not micro-manage everything. Just because I’m managing my time is no reason to become too time oriented and rigid. There’s stuff going on between the studying and the classes, the blogging and the meditating, little stuff that cements those blocs into the collective whole that is my life in a day. Life happens and there will be bumps and bruises and tears amidst the smiles and smooth sailing. That’s just a small part, the majority of which being rather amazing and awe-inspiring.

In conclusion, my dear readers, the little dollops of sun butter are just the minute experiences that make the whole dish of life that much better. So go ahead and take a spoonful. Just remember that there are other meals to taste along the road.

A Little Bit of Sunshine Roasted Sun Butter

330 g Raw sunflower seeds
1/2 tsp. Sea salt

Preheat the oven to 300ºF.
Spread the sunflower seeds flatly on a large baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
Roast for 30 - 35 minutes*, until golden brown and aromatic, stirring 1 to 2 times.
Remove and add to your food processor, scraping down the sides as necessary.
Process for 10 - 12 minutes, continuing to scrape as needed.** 
Once it is smooth, add the sea salt and process for another minute or so until it is at the desired consistency.

Makes 10 servings.

* Sunflower seeds take a little longer to brown, but I assure you the “roasted” taste in the sun butter is worth it.
** Okay, sun butter takes quite a while to become, well, sun butter. For a time it will seem like all it’s becoming a sunflower seed flower, but then it will ball up and have the consistency of sticky dough. The ball will twirl around the processor and then it will flatten out and finally liquefy. (But is it worth it, Morri? you ask. Yes, yes it is.)