Peanut, Peanut Butter

Do you remember that song from childhood? It was a ridiculously long song about how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich which you could make even more ridiculous by adding more and more to your sandwich for long car trip amusement. You know - back before the days of PSP and portable DVD players. Quite frankly - even back before the cassette-tape walkman! You have to remember those car rides!! Dull as dirt and no-seatbelt laws, so your parents had to find something to keep you sitting down. Of course - I look at the seatbelt/car-seat insanity of today and fondly recall the days of clown-car stuffing that would happen to take everyone in the neighborhood for an ice-cream cone in one car to save on gas. But I digress.

So anyway, the chorus went: "Peanut, Peanut Butter . . . and Jelly (sung using a super-deep voice)" and repeated. I have had it stuck in my head all day. And I mean literally ALL DAY. See, we finally ran out of our All-Natural-Just-Peanuts-and-Sea-Salt-Made-Here-Ourselves peanut butter so we broke open the tub of honey roasted peanuts we've been hoarding for this moment. The moment we were going to try making our own peanut butter.

Now, my friend Kelly is my favorite hippie. Behind Kel would be Elle, also a lovable hippie. But I have learned that I am actually considered to be pretty hippie myself. I don't really think of myself that way, but I guess I can see their point since I had told both Kelly and Elle that I was planning to try making our own peanut butter and they both sounded . . . well, surprised. I guess we are pretty indoctrinated that all chicken is born cellophane wrapped on styrofoam and all peanut butter arrives in little plastic tubs marked with a number 1 inside the recycling triangle on the bottom.

But, I grind our own wheat and that's not too tough. I make our own cleaners, and several people now use my recipes to clean their own homes. We buy raw milk and I now make both our own yogurt and our own keifer. Why should peanut butter be too hard?

Well, it wasn't. I poured 3 cups at a time into our food processor, turned the blade on, waited 3 minutes, and Voila! Creamy, delicious peanut butter. For $6.49, I made 7 cups/4.5 pounds of natural peanut butter. And the real test was to try it on Tucker, who loathes natural peanut butter. (He is a real big fan of the Skippy variety.) And after one bite, Tucker passed me back the spoon and said, "Please, mom, may I have some more?" ala Oliver. Success!

Next on our hippie list? Making our own clothes detergent. I love my Charlies Soap, but I would love not having to order my giant 5 gallon bucket every year.