Less Noise, More Green: Homegrown peanuts make amazing peanut butter!

Sunday, November 24, 2013

Homegrown peanuts make amazing peanut butter!




Today was the day I have been waiting for. In October, I pulled up the peanut plants I had growing in the garden and hung them up to dry (the peanuts dangling like some kind of alien creature). Now ready, the time had come to see how many peanuts we had and to decide what to do with them.




Art Girl helped me crack open the shells. Most of them contained one or two peanuts and only a few were empty. Some shells had underdeveloped nuts but overall we ended up with more peanuts than I thought! Do I roast them and eat them or roast them and make peanut butter? After consulting with the peanut lovers in the house the consensus was to go for the peanut butter. Decision made.


 To roast peanuts, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Spread out the nuts on a baking sheet and roast for twenty to twenty five minutes, stirring the nuts as least once. Let the nuts cool completely before eating because they still taste raw until cooled. If you wanted to, you could stop right now and eat the peanuts with or without salt added and they would be delicious.


If peanut butter is the goal, transfer the nuts to a food processor and add oil (either vegetable or peanut). The ratio is 1 teaspoon of oil to 1 cup of nuts. If you want very chunky peanut butter, add a little less. I kept back a few peanuts to chop and add to the creamy peanut butter I planned to make.

Run the food processor for several minutes, stopping every thirty seconds or so to scrape down the sides. The peanut butter will go through several stages before it gets smooth. As it starts to get smooth you can decide how chunky you want your butter. We like it smooth with peanut chunks added in so I kept the processor running for a few more seconds as I added the peanuts I had saved.


As you can see it made a great looking butter!


We ate it for lunch on crackers with homemade strawberry jam. It tasted fresh with a great roasted peanut flavor.  It was worth the wait. I am so happy with how my peanut experiment turned out.  To make enough peanut butter to last us any length of time, I would have to only plant peanuts in my garden so they will always be just a treat and that is fine with me. What fun to try something new and then be able to share the results with your family! Guess what my peeps are getting in their lunches tomorrow?

Any suggestions as to what I could use the peanut shells for?

See you in the kitchen,

Sue













8 comments:

  1. Thank you for sharing this. Haven't had homemade peanut butter since I was a girl. A neighbor would grow them and make it as a treat for all the kids.

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    1. Thank you, Sue, for being here: http://daybydaylovinglife.blogspot.pt/2013/11/ao-longo-das-ultimas-semanas-procurei.html

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    2. Thank you for featuring me on your blog! It is an interesting article!

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  3. We do have a café-owner in our city who has little bowls with peanuts on the bar. You have to drop the shells on the woorden floor. It seems that the trapped shells let out some kind of oil that's great to nurish te floor.

    Nice meeting you!

    Greets from Holland

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    1. What an interesting idea! Thank you so much for visiting me.
      Sue

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  4. WHEN YOU MADE THE PEANUT BUTTER, DID YOU LEAVE THE SKINS ON OR TAKE THEM OFF?

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