Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Peanutty Goodness

I an going through peanut butter with a vengeance since our little boy made his appearance. At middle of the night cluster feedings, I want to eat something that can sit by my bedside table without needing refrigeration and provide me with serious calories without being total junk food. What better option than PB? I'm the kind of person that eats it straight from the jar with a spoon, which os a bad habit to get into when you've been importing it in suitcases for the past seven years! PB, they say, looks like plasic explosives under x-rays, explaining why my bags are always in disarray when I arrive back in Brazil. I've learned to put the sticky stuff near the top of the bags...but my days of saving poundage for PB are now over!!!

Homemade Nut Butter

Approximately 500 grams of nuts
(I used 500 g salted, roasted peanuts plus a quarter cup of Brazil nuts/castanha do Para)

Food processor and spatula

Chop, grind and scrape down the goop building up on the sides until your nuts change from a finely ground nut meal to butter. My peanuts came warm from the oven and I think the heat helped; it seemed to go faster this time. This quantity filled a regular size PB jar. Not bad for R$ 6 and ten minutes of standing over a food processor, intermittently pressing a button...

This time around, I didn't add flavors or sweeteners but of course I am thinking about the combo potential...besides classic honey and cinnamon, I imagine maple-walnut butter would be lovely; or coconut/peanut/macadamia (with a hint of hot pepper for a vaguely Thai feel?); blending dark chocolate and craisins in with almond/Brazil nut butter...or adding sesame and flax seeds. Yum!

P.S.
I just typed this whole blog post one handed/one fingered while breastfeeding. So pleased with myself!

2 comments:

Ellen said...

try cashew nuts in the 'thai' variety. -Ellen

anne said...

yum! of course, the homemade kind needs to be stirred, and needs to be watched for spoilage, fyi -- or fridge it, but that defeats the "by the bed" part of it :) almonds are great as well, but they are "harder", I think, than peanuts, so processing might be different! congrats on not needing to smuggle it into the country any more!