I like to think that y'all visit my blog because it's informative and has really, really easy recipes. Life should be simple, and recipes should be easy. I don't know about you, but I don't have hours to spend making and doing.
Today I want to talk to you about peanut butter. I love peanut butter!!! I swear to you I had a PB&J for lunch every single day K - 12. Somehow, I never got sick of it. It's just the perfect lunch.
Peanut butter machines are pretty common at most stores that offer bulk.
Here's a photo of me, happy as a clam, retrieving silky, creamy, yummy peanut butter in bulk from heaven aka Rainbow Grocery. Unfortunately, It takes at least two hours via public transit to get to Rainbow ONE WAY.
Instead of making the journey I weighed my options. Is cleaning the food processor worth 4+ hours worth of travel time? The conclusion I came to, was no, no it's not.
I can get roasted peanuts in bulk from my local grocery store, and embarked on the terrifying mission of making my own peanut butter.
Y'all. Y'ALL.
This is the best tasting and best consistency of natural peanut butter I've ever had!
Plus, it was stupid easy. Like sooooooooo easy. And, the food processor was way easier to clean than I ever expected! Grab some peanuts this weekend, because you have to try this.
creamy peanut butter:
check out the video tutorial at the end!
- 3-4 cups of roasted peanuts: bought in bulk from Raley's
- 1-2 teaspoons of salt: bought in bulk from Berkeley Bowl
- 1 - 2 teaspoons of honey*: bought from a local farmer in glass. The jar can be returned.
Honey is completely optional. You can use maple syrup for a little extra sweetener, but I like to sneak honey into my diet for allergies. Make sure it's local raw honey native to your area!
Step 1: If you don't have roasted peanuts to start out with, roast them on a baking sheet at 325-350 for around 10 minutes. Move them around halfway through so they don't burn. You want to see a little color and they'll smell fragrant.
Step 2: Place the roasted peanuts in the base of your food processor and blend for 3-5 minutes occasionally stopping to scrape down the sides.
See all of the stages it will go through! Don't give up hope, it takes a while!
Step 3: Once it's reached the desired creamy consistency, add in your salt and sweetener.
Step 4: Blend a little bit more. Sometimes the honey can cause it to thicken a bit. You can add a touch of oil if necessary.
for crunchy peanut butter:
Take a 1/2 cup of peanuts and blitz them in the food processor so they're large chunks. Remove them and set them aside. Follow all of the steps for creamy peanut butter and add the large chunks in at the end.
for almond butter:
Use all of the same steps, sub almonds for peanuts. It will take longer to break down the almonds.
for sun butter:
Repeat all of the same steps with sunflower seeds. It will take almost 15 minutes for sunflower seeds to go through all four stages, so be patient.
And, it's really that easy! Nut butter is just blended nuts. Crazy right!?
