Day: February 1, 2013

My Homemade Peanut Butter

On By Michel McDonaldIn Diet, Food, Health, Noom, RecipesLeave a comment

peanut butter

Peanut butter seems to cost a lot of money these days.  Don’t you wish you could make your own at more than half the cost?  Well guess what?  You can!

Today I bought a box of small mason jars and 2 tall 16oz jars of Planters Dry Roasted Peanuts.  I was looking for no salted, but all they had were dry roasted, honey roasted and some other flavor that was spicy.  Dry roasted was fine I guess.

I added 1-16oz jar of peanuts to the food processor and blended the nuts until they were in chunks.  I added 2 tablespoons of peanut oil and 2 tablespoons of brown sugar and 1 teaspoon of salt.  I blended it until it was smooth.  Although, it was very dry and I decided to just add a touch more peanut oil to make it more creamy than it was.  I probably went overboard because it did get creamier, really creamier lol.  Next time I’ll just let it blend until it gets creamy on it’s own.  My partner tasted it and he said it needed more brown sugar, so I added 2 more tablespoons.  It did make a difference.

I like these little jars because if I want to make some peanut butter cookies, 1 whole jar is basically 1 cup, enough to make 1 batch of cookies.  Next time I go to the store I’m going to buy the bottling kit so I can start making my own jams and applesauce.  I could literally go crazy bottling jams and applesauce, but at the same time I know what’s in them so I know that I am eating healthier and saving a ton of money.

My Homemade Pecan Butter Cookies

On By Michel McDonaldIn Diet, Food, RecipesLeave a comment

pecan butter cookies

I have been slaving in the kitchen cracking pecans from our pecan tree so that I could make 2 things, pecan butter and pecan butter cookies.  I had collected almost 16oz of pecans.  It didn’t work out as I had planned, but I made it work, sort of.

I added the pecans to the food processor and just obliterated them until they were like sand, and it literally looked like sand on the beach.  I added the peanut oil and brown sugar and blended it some more, but it wouldn’t get soft like peanut butter.  I left it in there for quite a bit too.  I haven’t used our food processor in ages and it’s as old as our relationship is, if not older (which is going on 19 years if you don’t know).  It was starting to give an electrical smell so I was afraid of overdoing it.

The pecan butter didn’t want to become smooth at all.  I tried adding more peanut oil, but it didn’t seem to make a difference, so instead I just went on with the cookie ingredients.  Since it was enough to make 2 batches of cookies, I added 2 cups of sugar and 2 eggs and blended it until it was like dough and took it out.  I cut half of the dough and put half in the fridge wrapped in Saran Wrap and the other half I cut up into squares that I could roll like into balls to form the cookies.  I didn’t get 36 cookies, some were too big and some were too small.  I wish there were a mold that would cut the dough into 36 squares so I could get even cookie sizes lol.

The cookies came out really sweet, I mean too sweet.  They are good, just really sweet.  I didn’t expect that to happen.  I mean, the peanut butter cookies are sweet, but not that sweet.  Also, the dough was really dark, but the cookies came out a lot lighter.  Oh well.

Pecan cookies are certain not something I would ever try to do again, same with the pecan butter, so this was an experience that I will remember for as long as I live.  The lesson, leave the pecans for pie…