DIY Peanut Butter (1st Guest Post by Kylie Wolf, a.k.a. Zippaloo)

A staple in many families, perfectly paired with jelly, honey, or chocolate is the one and only PEANUT BUTTER.

Peanut butter is and has been a pivotal ingredient in my life.  Here are some classic ways to enjoy peanut butter:

Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (PB&J) - I personally don’t like jelly but the majority of this country does, I just eat it plain, though some of my relatives and my siblings would eat a peanut butter and butter sandwich coined the “butter butter” sandwich.

All the Reeses products – Growing up, Reeses Peanut Butter Cups would get shipped in from the US to the Commissary in Dhahran. My friends and I would beg our parents to buy many more than we needed because we didn’t know the next time they would be available. Sometimes they would be out of stock for months!

Peanut Butter Cookies -  I enjoy these the most right out of the oven, and with a Hershey’s kiss in the center.  YUM!

The list can go on and on and on… with snacks and even more gourmet options like restaurants using peanut sauces on entrees (grilled chicken skewers with a thai peanut sauce is one of my favorites).

But growing up in Dhahran I loved Peter Pan creamy peanut butter (with the yellow cap) it was super smooth, sweet, and would get stuck to the roof of my mouth.

Which is all great except for the ingredients!

Peter Pan Creamy Peanut Butter’s INGREDIENTS:

Roasted Peanuts, Sugar, Hydrogenated Vegetable Oils (Cottonseed and Rapeseed), Salt, Partially Hydrogenated Cottonseed Oil.

YIKES!

I care a lot about the food that I put into my body.  I changed my ways and now (thanks to being educated about food) I only buy and eat all natural, organic peanut butter.

Making sure the only ingredient is: Dry Roasted Peanuts.

Over the holidays in Dhahran there was no all-natural peanut butter at the store, so I convinced my dad to do something I had wanted to do for a while:  make my own peanut butter.

If true peanut butter is just ground up peanuts it had to be simple enough and with looking on the Internet and in the Cuisinart cookbook, it was true!

Recipe for Peanut Butter:

Ingredients:

• dry roasted peanuts

(we used raw white peanuts, but I would now recommend buying dry roasted peanuts)

Directions:

• Place peanuts in food processor.
• Process the peanuts for 3-5 mins. Enjoy watching the peanuts turn to powder then form a dough-like ball and roll around the processor. (Dad and I were so amazed I forgot to take pictures!)
• Let the paste sit for about 3 mins for the oils to separate from the peanuts. (You should see the oil bead).
• Process again for as long as you want. The more you process the creamier your peanut butter will be.

With all the excitement and the intensity of the peanut butter (it had a pure peanuts punch!) we skyped Sam to include her on the fun.

The three of us had lots of laughs, oohs and ahhs, and bounced around ideas:

• To decrease the intensity, add honey to the recipe or drizzle honey on the saltines with the PB.

• Try it with ice cream -
  • Vanilla Ice Cream, homemade PB, Hershey’s chocolate sauce.

• Try it with banana slices -
  • Here is an elaborate but delicious snack. Banana sliced, topped with a little PB, sprinkle with cinnamon and coconut flakes.

• Bake it into brownies.

• Try it with oatmeal.
  • I eat oatmeal almost ever day of the week.
    • Cook ½ cup rolled oats with ¾ cup water and a dash of salt in the microwave for 3 mins.
    • Add PB, raisins, generous amounts of cinnamon, and a splash of soy milk.

Health Facts about Peanut butter:

PB should NOT include sugar, HFCS (high fructose corn syrup), salt, or partially hydrogenated vegetable oil.

Good, healthy, pure peanut butter is JUST ground up dry roasted peanuts.  No need for extra oil, or extra anything.  Make sure you check the ingredients because even Peanut Butter’s that claim to be “Natural” are still made with some of these intruders.

Sugar and HFCS get put in because the US loves sugar and it enhances the flavor. HFCS is incredibly cheap to produce (it’s made from Corn) and is found in thousands of products. It is really just another form of sugar.  Unfortunately adding these ingredients increases your sugar intake, your calorie intake, and your insulin levels.
Hydrogenated vegetable oils are added to stabilize the peanut butter, make it easier to spread, and to prevent oil separation.  I don’t think any of those things is worth the risks that Trans Fats (trans fatty acids) can cause: atherosclerosis, coronary heart disease, or a stroke.
Salt is added to prevent spoilage.

Benefits:

Peanut butter does contain mostly fats, but these fats are monounsatuarated fats and they help protect against the risk of cardiovascular disease and lower levels of LDL (“bad” cholesterol).

Peanut butter (and peanuts) also provide proteins, vitamin B3, folate, vitamin E, magnesium, and fiber.

If you have a peanut allergy:

First, I’m sorry, I have a serious love for peanut butter and can’t imagine a life without it.

Second, please be very be very careful – a reaction to peanut allergy is anaphylactic shock and many factories use the same machinery for peanuts as other things, check labels. Better to be safe than sorry.

I hope this post will make all you readers more excited and aware of America’s simple and classic snack, peanut butter. And be sure to check the ingredients of the peanut butters you now purchase!

If you have a food processor I recommend that you buy 1/4 kilogram of peanuts and try this recipe out!

Its easy and delicious.

Kylie (a.k.a. Zippaloo)

*** Check out Kylie’s new blog here! ***

Watermelon!

Sleepy-faced Jim with his morning watermelon smile!

Check out a couple things we’ve enjoyed eating with watermelon…

These pancakes were fun to make and even better to eat. I added coconut milk to the batter (which I probably won’t do again as it made the pancakes too chewy) and shredded coconut in and on top of the pancakes (which was totally delicious). The best was mixing the coconut milk with some real maple syrup. This is my new favorite pancake topping.

Scrambled eggs and some sauteed onions and peppers in a tortilla with hot sauce. Good then, but I can’t stand the smell of eggs being cooked lately. Ick.

Yay for watermelon! It’s so juicy and excellent blitzed up in the blender with a tad of agave, with breakfasts or even just on its own any time of day. Yum!

Perfect Day For a Banana Tree

I’m still using up the large bag of Pamela’s Baking and Pancake Mix. I was sad to find out that it has cultured buttermilk in it as I’m trying not to eat dairy. It makes the best tasting pancakes I’ve ever had though. SIGH. I replaced the eggs with “flax eggs”, making this a gluten free, refined sugar free, and ALMOST vegan breakfast. So good!

Can you see what I’m pointing to? Bananas! In my own backyard! One of my dreams has come true (without any effort on my part)! Oh nature, you are awesome!

Jim was the one who spotted the bananas. See how cute he is?! He’s getting so buff from all the surfing he’s been doing. 10 minutes after this photo was taken, he was reading in our hammock. Nice life, huh?!

The Bananas! I had always wondered if the banana trees I see when I sit up in bed and stretch would ever produce bananas. Both trees have fruit too! I just hope we can find a way to get one when they’re ripe enough.

Ok, so I found these glasses while we were standing in line at Mas x Menos the other day. Orange is my least favorite color (except when found in nature), but these are just so rad I had to get them. Who cares if they make my hair look orange, I got them for $5 and I look like a bad ass.

Best of 2009 Blog Challenge: Best Word or Phrase

When I asked Jim what his word of phrase of the year was he responded, “I had a year? I had this year?! No, I think I shared it.” I tried to bypass his silliness by trying to further prompt him, “Your 2009 was so ____?” After a moment and with a face of serious thought he replied, “Bananas.” “Bananas?! You’ve got to be kidding me!” (I had an image of my youngest sister channeling Gwen Stefani singing, “This sh*t is bananas. B-A-N-A-N-A-S!” and then my Dad using the term “bananas”, like the hip 52 year old that he thinks he is.) In all earnestness Jim made his case by saying,”In all honesty, I bet I ate well over 200 bananas this year. I mean I have one as a part of my breakfast just about every day and I also eat them as a snack.” I cackled helplessly.

Speaking of bananas, I slipped on one on Halloween. Seriously. Jim, his mom and I were in a tienda/mini super in Santa Elena, the small town by the Monteverde Cloud Forest, picking up breakfast items for the next morning. It was a small shop and after grabbing some cereal and bananas I spun around to ask Jim if he wanted any juice. In doing so I slipped, thankfully catching my fall. I looked down and there were a few bananas on the floor, one of them squashed. Only then did I notice that the produce area I was standing in was crowded with crates of new fruit and others with older fruit. Someone was clearly in the middle of rotating out older produce for new and the banana I had stepped on was meant to be tossed. I looked up at Jim shocked. “I just slipped on a banana.” He responded, “I didn’t know that actually happens.”

Homemade Raw Almond Milk with Vegan Cookies

I’ve never been a big fan of cow’s milk in anything other than cereal or baking. I however love yogurt, ice cream, and cheese. In my exploration of vegan eating, I wanted to find an alternative to cow’s milk that wasn’t soy milk. Soy milk often has many added sugars and as I’ve earlier,  it tends to upset my tummy. So after asking some vegan friends about it I decided to make Raw Almond Milk. Thankfully a friend brought me Raw Almonds from the US (as they are expensive here)!

I based my recipe off of Natasha’s from The Voracious Vegan. She has it laid out step by step with lovely photos. I didn’t sweeten mine as I was out of agave and didn’t want detract from the almond flavor with maple syrup. I don’t like sweet drinks anyway, unless it’s fresh juice. I also did not have dates, but in the future I will use them. I wanted to make sure that the milk was extra creamy so I used a little less than 3 cups of water, but I’ll probably do the full 3 cups next time. I love that Natasha adds cinnamon, as I would have done that anyway. It’s warming effects are so comforting!

Raw Almond Milk

Ingredients:

• 1 cup Raw Almonds, soaked in water overnight
• 2 1/2 -3 cups Water
• Dates, pits removed and/or Agave (if you would like it sweet)
• Cinnamon (to your liking)
  

Directions:

• After soaking the Almonds overnight, rinse them.
• Put Almonds, Water, and Dates (if using) in a blender and blitz
• Strain the mixture through a cheese cloth, clean stocking, or other fabric
• Put liquid back in the blender, add Agave (if using) and Cinnamon, and blitz
• Save Almond Meal for other use (see below)
• Enjoy it by drinking on it’s own, having it in cereal, or cook/bake with it!

Note: It kept well for the 3-4 days that it took me to consume it (it took all of me to slowly savored it) in the fridge. It may separate, but just shake it up a bit.

So I knew that making Almond Milk would leave me with Almond Meal and I refused to waste it! Many people who have a dehydrator make crackers out of it, but I don’t so I moved on to other ideas. I could have used it to bread veggies or put into a bread, but decided what I really wanted was a cookie to have with my milk! I was surprised by how little is out there online concerning what to do with your leftover nut meal.

So I made two different kinds over a few days. Neither were AWESOME, but I did enjoyed both. To be perfectly honest, I wanted these cookies to be vegan, gluten-free, and refined sugar free and because I still have very limited baking products to meet those qualifications, I had to get creative. Also to be frank, the reason I didn’t think they were OUT OF THIS WORLD GOOD is because I’m getting used to training my palate to enjoy treats that are not filled with horrible stuff. Neither were crispy but instead were a little more cake like, which wasn’t bad, just different. Anyway, I’d like to add that both of these are full of awesome fiber and antioxidant rich dark chocolate!

Vegan Chocolate Chip Banana Oat Cookies (also gluten and refined sugar free!)

Ingredients:

• 1 cup Gluten-Free Oats
• 1/3 cup Almond Meal, leftover from almond milk
• 1/8-1/4 cup Unsweetened Shredded Coconut
• 1/2 teaspoon Cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon Salt
• 1/2 teaspoon Baking Powder
• 1 1/2-2 Ripe Bananas, mashed
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
• 1/8 cup Coconut or Canola Oil
• 1/8 cup Unsweetened Applesauce
• 1/4 cup Chopped Vegan Chocolate, I used dark for it’s antioxidants

Directions:

• Mix all Dry Ingredients and all Wet Ingredients separately
• Add Dry Ingredients to Wet. It’ll be a wet mixture, don’t worry
• Add Chocolate bits
• All cookies (15) should fit on one lightly oiled tray, press flat
• Bake at 350 for 15 minutes or until puffed slightly and brown (don’t burn bottoms!)

Vegan Chocolate Chip Almond Oat Cookies (also gluten and refined sugar free!)

Ingredients:

• 2/3 cup Almond Meal, left over from almond milk
• 1/3 cup Gluten-Free Oats, processed in blender or food processor
• 1/2 teaspoon Baking Powder
• 1/4 teaspoon Salt
• 4 Tablespoons Egg Substitute, I used Flax Eggs (see recipe below)
• Just shy of 1/4 cup Maple Syrup
• 1 Tablespoon Unsweetened Apple sauce
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
• 1/4 cup Chopped Vegan Chocolate, I used dark for it’s antioxidants

Directions:

• Mix all Dry Ingredients and all Wet Ingredients separately
• Add Dry Ingredients to Wet. It’ll be a wet mixture, don’t worry
• All cookies (15) should fit on one lightly oiled tray, press flat
• Add Chocolate bits
• Bake at 350 for 10 minutes or until puffed slightly and brown (don’t burn bottoms!)

Flax Eggs

Ingredients:

• 2 Tablespoons Flax Seeds, Ground
• 4-6 Tablespoons Water

Directions:

• Simmer Ground Flax Seeds and Water in sauce pan for about 5 minutes or until it reaches an egg type consistency

Notes:

• 4 T flax eggs=1 egg
• Use the 1:3 ratio to make more
• 1 cup flax: 3 cups water makes about 16 eggs worth
• Refrigerate!

Bottom Line: The Raw Almond Milk was AMAZING! The Cookies were good I will use other “acceptable” baking products with the Almond Meal in the future. My husband liked the Cookies and the Almond Milk (when it was in a Smoothie) and was impressed by my effort and creativity (which warmed my heart). This last bit makes my dietary transition a bit easier!

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