I’m sure you’re wondering, “Why make peanut butter when you can just buy it at the store?” Well, we’ve been eating natural peanut butter for years, since Calvin was old enough to eat PB&Js because it doesn’t have any sugar or hydrogenated nasty stuff in it. Yes, the oil on the top is annoying and yes, it does tend to slosh over the side the first time you try to mix up a jar, but I’ve found that storing it upside-down helps to keep the oil at the bottom and I’d rather work a little harder at mixing peanut butter than eat chemically altered oil that is going to harden my arteries. I’ll leave that job to bacon.
So anyway, we’ve been eating Trader Joe’s natural peanut butter for the last 3 years and have gotten spoiled. Alas, there is no TJ’s here and the only natural brand of peanut butter looked a little bit sad. No big deal, we bought it anyway and are going to try it. But then when we were walking through the bulk barrels section of Carrefour where they have actual open barrels of spices, nuts, grains, seeds, etc, I had the wild idea of making my own peanut butter. I guess that’s what happens when you have extra time and energy on your hands because someone else is doing all the laundry, mopping and most of the dishes.
So I bought 1/2 a kilo of roasted, salted peanuts. That’s about a pound for those of you not using the metric system. Yes, I know raw unsalted peanuts are better for you, but I like salt.
Then at home I got out my hand blender (new, since my trusty Braun is in Egypt somewhere – but at least this one is 220v so I don’t need to use a converter now), that has a mini food processor attachment and threw in some peanuts.
I would normally add some peanut oil, but I couldn’t find any at the store so I used grapeseed oil (a healthy oil with no taste that is great for cooking that I used to buy at TJs).
Hmm, super salty. It tasted very peanutty, but also like you just ate an entire bag of baseball peanuts and sucked on the shells. Yummy, but too strong. Next time I’ll do 50/50 salted/unsalted. But for now? I have some unsalted almonds and even though I’ve never had it, TJ’s carries natural almond butter right next to the peanut butter. So I know it is possible to make almond butter. Maybe mixing them would work?
Add enough oil to make it spreadable, mix them together and refrigerate. The almonds reduced the saltiness and added a nice sweetness. Win. Win. I’ll have to do a taste test between mine and the store brand and see which one we like better. At least this way we don’t have to stir in the oil that sits at the top of the jar!