Some friends gave us some of their 60lb bag of organic, raw peanuts. (Of course I planted them!) today was our experiment in making fresh roasted peanuts, and of course from there it is a short leap to home made peanut butter.
Ever had raw peanuts? Perhaps not so oddly enough, they have a slowly nutty, slightly pea-ish flavour to them. To get them to that lovely, rich, peanutty-flavour that we all love so much, they need to be roasted first.
Using a recipe from thekitchn.com, we roasted our nuts in a single layer on a cookie sheet, 350 for 20-25 min. I actually lowered the temperature to 325 after 15 minutes, as it smelled a little like the skins were burning. A little salt on the nuts when they came out of the oven, and then the hard part: waiting for them to cool enough to eat. You could hear them crackling happily to themselves as they cooled, the nut pulling away from the skins slightly.
Delicious! Still warm, slightly salty, and rich and buttery all at once.
Next up? Peanut butter of course! I kept half of the nuts for eating, and skinned the other half, with some help of course :) Peanut skins flying everywhere! An anaphylactic's worst nightmare, I'm certain.
It's deceivingly simple to make fresh, home made peanut butter. Nuts? Meet blender.
After about three minutes of blending, it started to show signs of smooth oily goodness around the bottom edges.
Little lumps were still going around inside, but I checked it out anyway. It wasn't quite as smooth as store bought peanut butter, but had a slightly whipped consistency that looked promising. Thekitchn said to give it a few more minutes at this point, so I did, and voila:
... a magical transformation occurred, and it all came together in a uniform, smooth, creamy consistency. A quick taste, and sure enough, peanut butter! I added a dash of salt and a swirl of honey for a little character and depth of flavour, and another quick blend.
I ended up with a small jar full, and enough leftover for lunch. Peanut butter sandwiches: fresh homemade organic bread, organic blackberry jam from BC, and some apples from the Organic Box.
#happysquirrel
Oh my goodness! I so want to come live with you!! Can I?
ReplyDeleteHi Dad here, very impressive. I always wanted to make my own peanut butter just never had all the right things at the right time.
ReplyDeleteSo how many peanuts are you going to get per plant?
Probably none :)
ReplyDeleteA combination of planting too late and too much shade from the squash vines.
Now I know what to do for next year.