Peanut Butter 3 Ways

Note to self: NEVER buy canned chili again. Even if it's vegetarian, organic AND Trader Joe's brand. If nothing else, I have reiterated the fact that food is better when left to the home cook and not from a can. Unfortunately, my chili-cheese hot dog was collateral damage in this instance.

Well now that I've gotten that out of the way.....

I love peanut butter, which I have possibly mentioned before, thus the name of the blog. So it's no shocker that I'd attempt to make peanut butter. Three different peanut butters at that. 

It is so easy to turn these:

Into this:

But first, breakfast. The BEST bowl of oatmeal has mashed banana mixed in while its cooking, splash of vanilla at the end and any random assortment of toppings. Today it was granola and toasted coconut. 

The star of the peanut butter today is banana. There aren't many combinations I like more than banana + peanut butter. Oh and if there's chocolate in the mix too, I'm soooo down.  

Peanut butter 3 ways

((makes ~1.5 cups))

1/16 ounce bag of unsalted unroasted peanuts

1.5 T turbinado sugar

1/4 t salt

1/2 t vanilla extract

1/70 g bag of freeze dried bananas (I used Trader Joe's)

1.5 T unsweetened cocoa powder

1. Roast peanuts on a sheet tray in a 350 F oven for about 10 minutes. Keep a close eye on them because they burn quick.

2. Transfer 1/3 of the peanuts and a pinch of salt to your food processor* and turn it on until the peanut butter becomes drippy. You may need to stop and scrape the sides and bottom once or twice. This takes about 5 minutes.

3. Transfer your plain peanut butter to a jar.

4. Transfer the remaining 2/3 of the peanuts, sugar**, salt, vanilla and bananas to the food processor and buzz again until smooth. 

5. Pour half of this banana peanut butter into a jar. 

6. To the remaining peanut butter, add cocoa powder and pulse until combined. 

7. Pour this chocolate banana peanut butter into a jar. 

I store them all in the refrigerator to prevent the oil from separating.  

*I now use a Cuisinart 7-cup food processor and it works perfectly. Before I was using a Kitchen Aid 3- cup food processor and it just never worked right. 

**You may not need to add this sugar, as the bananas are sweet on their own. Of course though I didn't think of this until after it had been added. The crystals of turbinado sugar are rather large and if it's not added to the peanut butter at the beginning of the process, the crystals wont melt and you'll have a grainy texture. So, I wouldn't suggest adding the turbinado sugar at the end, only at the beginning. 

NOTE: substituting honey, agave, brown rice syrup, etc. will change the texture too because it will bind up the peanut butter and prevent it from becoming drippy. 

Peanuts + salt. 

 Peanuts + banana.

Peanuts + banana + chocolate. 

So dead tired. One day, I'll come home from work and just veg out on my couch instead of finding a zillion things to do around the house. 

-S