Adventures in Peanut Butter

Good peanut butter is hard to come by in this city. Not just good in taste, but also in ingredients. Everything sold here contains trans fats! And most of it is full of sugar as well. Now, I have tried 'natural' peanut butter which is just peanuts and maybe some oil, and I know it tastes great. So I Googled "homemade peanut butter recipe". Looked easy enough! Almost all of the recipes called for 2tbsp of honey or peanut oil per cup of roasted peanuts. Pop them in the blender or food processor and voila! Homemade peanut butter. Keeps in the fridge for up to 2 weeks.

Since I don't have peanut oil in the cupboard I used honey. We had some whole roasted peanuts in the cupboard so I shelled a cup's worth. Eva helped me put the ingredients in the blender and away we went. Either the authors of the recipes know something I don't, or I have a sub-standard blender. It took longer to mix than it did to shell the peanuts!! I ended up adding some olive oil, which made a negligible difference in blenderability. I finally called it done well ahead of the 'creamy' stage. Our peanut butter was kind of crumbly, very chunky, and not very spreadable, as you can see above. That said, the kids and I loved it!! They both ate more toast than I've seen them eat, and they wanted more.

Conclusion: I will try again, this time with the food processor. Also with shelled roasted peanuts. Hopefully these changes will increase the smoothness and speed factors.