When life gives you peanuts...

So when it comes to condiments around here, we have a slight addiction. Ketchup, salad dressings, barbecue sauce, peanut butter, honey mustard...our refrigerator door runneth over. Well, it DID runneth over - until the massive purge of February 2014 occurred. We started reading the backs of bottles and realized we were in an extremely unhealthy relationship with corn syrup and needed to break up STAT. So with feet dragging and heads hanging low, we begrudgingly tossed half-eaten bottles of preservatives in the trash and filled donation bins with stockpiled containers of coupon-acquired condiment goodness. Remember when I told you how frugal Trey and I are? Yeah, this was hard for us. Really, really hard.

The first thing I had to figure out how to replace was peanut butter, because it's a staple in our world. We use it in smoothies, on English muffins and waffles, on sandwiches, on crackers...breakfast, lunch, snack or dinner, it's consumed in mass quantities. But most peanut butter is far from being just peanuts. The jar of reduced-fat "all natural" peanut butter in our pantry listed corn syrup solids, sugar, salt and hydrogenated vegetable oils as four of the top six ingredients. If that's "all natural," I'm afraid to see what processed looks like!

A few minutes of quick research and I learned I can make peanut butter in my Vitamix. And the ingredient list included one thing - 3 cups of unsalted, roasted peanuts. Thus was born the great peanut shelling project of 2014. Did you know you can buy a MASSIVE bag of unsalted peanuts at Costco for $5.99? You can, but they are in shells. As we stood in the aisle debating what to do, sweet Trey said, "I can shell those, that's no problem." I looked at him a little quizzically but took his word for it and home came the peanuts. A couple batches of peanut butter later I'm not so sure he is sold on his new-found hobby, but he will be the first to tell you this homemade peanut butter is amazing.

So how in the world do you make peanut butter? One very important thing to know: IT'S EASY! Any food processor or high-powered blender should be able to handle this task, just consult the manual so you don't burn up the motor! And if you don't have one of those handy kitchen appliances, I'm betting your local grocery store has a machine that will do it for you. Here's the step-by-step process for those of you that like pictures:

Shell your peanuts (or purchase them shelled - just make sure you are getting unsalted!). You will need 3 cups, and our blender manual is very adamant on not using more than that amount to avoid burning up the motor. So please consult your manual!

Load up the peanuts directly into your blender or food processor container.

Start blending! For our Vitamix, we started at 1 and gradually increased to 10, then flipped to High. You have to keep pressing the peanuts into the blades using the tamper, and about a minute later smooth, creamy peanut butter will start flowing.

And there you go...the smoothest, creamiest, yummiest peanut butter ever.

The shelling process takes some time, but the actual peanut butter-making process takes about five minutes flat. One batch makes a little more than a jar of store-bought peanut butter and lasts us about 3-4 weeks depending how often we are using it.

If you have a peanut allergy in your house, you can do this with all kinds of nuts. Nut butters tend to be a staple for so many of us moms, and this is an easy, affordable way to give our kids that protein in the healthiest way possible. Let me know if you try it and how it turns out!