Peanut Butter and Honey Crisp Apples

One of my mom’s favorite foods was peanut butter.  She liked it on toast and she liked it on a warm piece of toast for breakfast.  Jam or Jelly wasn’t even needed, and I recall bananas being a good addition.  I don’t know if it was inspired by Elvis, but my mom was always ahead of her time and I choose to believe that maybe Elvis got the idea from my mom!  I like peanut butter sandwiches on warm crunchy toast with bananas too and had it for dinner just a couple of weeks ago when I was simply too tired to come home and make a hot meal for dinner.  It was satisfying and brought a smile to my face.

I picked up one of those Ninja blender/dough-maker/smoothie-maker/does-everything-but-eat-the-meal-for-you gadgets at the after Christmas sale at our local Target-ish store called Diunsa.  I couldn’t resist.  I know.  I have a gadget problem.  I am going to have to live here for a very long time to make the ROI (return on investment) worthwhile for the way I’ve outfitted this kitchen and my mom, and probably my sister would tell me I am nuts, but well, it’s too late.  Some things have ended up in my kitchen here and the meals that are coming out of it when I’m not totally worn down by an overwhelming amount of work or the heat or well, just life in general, are fabulous.

I made peanut butter in the Ninja a couple of weeks ago and delicious Buckeyes were the result.  Who could resist and what was I going to do with a pound of peanut butter?!

Someone recommended I use honey-roasted peanuts to make peanut butter the next time I decided to give it a try.  I think it was probably Stephanie Manley of Copykat.com, who made the recommendation, but it might have been my sister, Jane?  Darn memory!

Anyway, the peanut butter recipe is easy and if you want home made, smooth as you wish peanut butter, I recommend pulling out a Ninja or a Vitamix or a Blendtec or whatever really good blender you can get your hands on and grind away!

I used 1/2 a container of honey-roasted peanuts and let it go until it was smooooooth and it was warm when it came out. What I like about the Ninja is it’s profile.  The smaller carafe fits easily under the cabinet and it tucks away into the corner very nicely.  I can say, after making smoothies and peanut butter and pesto, this is a gadget I highly recommend and no, Ninja has no idea I exist.  How could they?  I ran away to Honduras and some of my friends don’t even know I’m here.  Ok, so that’s kind of sad, isn’t it?

Back to the peanut butter recipe.  That’s it!  That’s the recipe.  You don’t need anything else!  NOTHING!  Just put the peanuts in the Ninja, and hit crush and stand there and watch for a few minutes as the machine pulverizes those nuts into smooth, creamy, delicious, Honey-Roasted Peanut buter.  The kind my mom would have loved to have warm out of the Ninja.  The honey-roasted peanuts are sweet so the sugar already on the peanuts is all you need and there is no need for added oil.  There’s plenty in the nuts.  That’s why nuts have a pretty high calorie count, but if you’re going to splurge on peanut butter, make it yourself if you can.  The peanut butter is smooth as you can see in the photos, but there is a little feel of the sugar.  If you don’t want that, go for regular roasted peanuts, but I had to add a little vegetable oil to make it creamy enough.  I added a full tablespoon to one 16 oz. container of plain roasted peanuts.

An added treat to today’s snack is the apple slices.  See, I found Honey Crisp apples in the supermarket today!  I was so excited I almost jumped up and down.  As it was, Jorge couldn’t quite figure out why I was making this little squealing noise when I spotted them … and um… the Hebrew National hot dogs!  It was a banner day at Los Andes Comisariato.

I know my mom would have loved this peanut butter.

Have you ever made peanut butter?  Does your machine make it as smooth as you like?

Mom in Paris in the early 50′s