Clean eating Nutella...yeah, it's good.

So, right after Baby #4 arrived, I developed this affinity for mixing plain greek yogurt and two heaping tablespoons of Nutella together and calling it "health food." They make it look so healthy and all with the milk and the hazelnuts an the flowers and leaves on the label. Am I right!? After I came to my post-partum senses, though, I started studying the label.

At first glance, it's not much worse than peanut butter, right!? 200 calories, 12 grams of fat, 2 grams of protein. How-evah, there's 21 grams of sugar - 21! - AND, it's the first stinking ingredient. Peanut butter has 2g; so, Nutella is just a nutty distant relative (see what I did there?) of peanut butter, and nothing more. Sigh...

SO, since I've been eating clean for the last 10 months, Nutella hasn't been part of our lives (except that one time that I made the three-year-old a Nutella and coconut oil sammie and then sometime while the sandwich was frying up she decided she didn't like chocolate; I mean...one shouldn't waste in in the name of belly-fat, right? I totally ate the sandwich).

Over the last couple weeks, this homemade Nutella I keep seeing on Pinterest has been consuming my every thought. Okay, not my EVERY thought, but I have had a nagging want to put a batch together and see what happens. So, two days ago (after making a very expensive trip to the health food store because I have no control around specialty foods), I did.

The ingredients are super easy and the only item you may have to search for is hazelnuts. The rest you probably have on-hand - maple syrup, cocoa powder, vanilla bean (I used vanilla extract and it was fine), and milk (I used almond).

The results:

• A little gritty (easily overlooked)
• Spot-on taste
• Kind of expensive (because hazelnuts ain't cheap)
• Would make again (but for a treat, not often)

So far, the homemade Nutella is every bit as versatile as the real deal. It goes on bananas, Ezekiel 4:9 toast and works just fine straight out of the container on a spoon!! It's also kid approved AND easy for kids to help make (after-all, someone needs to help peel the skins off those filberts!) If you love that addictive hazel-nutty deliciousness, give this cleaned-up version a try and let me know what you think!

Original recipe cred goes to My Whole Food Life. Love that blog!