Nut Butters are Neat-O! (some ideas of what to do with your PB!)
 |
| Crunchy Homemade Peanut Butter |
1 pound peanuts (I used salted, "fancy" from Costco)
2 tsp coconut oil (optional....adds a bit of creaminess)
3 dates (optional...adds a bit of sweetness)
Puree in food processor for three minutes or so, until you have peanut butter! That's it!
I am going to give a big thank you to Melissa of My Whole Food Life (here is a link to some awesome blueberry jam with chia!) for her comments about just how easy this is! As I shared with her, I tried making peanut butter several years ago with a Vitamix and it didn't go well. This one experience, along with lots of time, lead me to feel that making peanut (or almond, or cashew, or probably any kind of nut) butter would be so much more difficult than buying it.
When I finally decided to go for it, I was astounded at how quickly I had MADE my own delicious peanut butter! It's just like (even MUCH better!) the kind you get from Whole Foods or Heinen's or at a Farmer's Market (we get Sirina's Almond Butter at Crocker Park)!
On the other hand, like LARABARS, I was reassured of the value of fresh-ground nut butters at most of these stores...it takes a lot (around a pound) of nuts to fill a pint-sized container. P.S. Our container IS ALREADY just about gone!
So, I will buy NO more peanut butter from Costco! The evolution of peanut butter from Costco has been disappointing :( Over the last 5 years, Costco has gone from offering Kirkland Organic Natural Peanut Butter (basically, nuts and salt, awesome!), to a non-organic Kirkland natural variety (such a bummer not to have organic!), to Skippy Natural (which while omitting hydrogenated oils, adds in sugar!), and yesterday, there was only traditional peanut butter (made with hydrogenated oils, i.e. TRANS FAT, and probably sugar!, and WHY is it even still on the market?!). YUCK!
Other simple food tasks that took me a while to try:
a) making bread (from a bread maker, for me!), and
b) using dried beans! Lucky Seven Sweet Things about Dried Beans, and More!
Sometimes, even though I KNOW how easy doing it may be, it still takes takes me a lot of motivation to try something new! I guess we really are creatures of habit :)
COMMENTS: Cooler weather this week, love it or hate it?
