Balanced Green Living

Have you ever craved thick, sweet and salty peanut butter? I’ve always loved it and often use it for my smoothies, as a nice addition to my porridge, cookies (that’s a winner!) and simply as a snack – a quick teaspoon full of peanut butter followed by another one 🙂

I used to buy peanut butter, always torn between going for the high-end all natural but really expensive one and the cheaper version that was never bad either. Until I made my own peanut butter. I would never, NEVER, go back to the shop-bought one. Simply because:

• it’s too easy to make to justify buying one from the shops
• it’s so much better than any high-end, all-natural butter you can get
• it cots pennies compared to what you need to pay in shops

So, this is what you need to make two small jars of delicious, natural, to-die-for homemade peanut butter:

1. a litre jar of peanuts (or however many you have at hand)
2. a tablespoon of vegetable oil (not olive oil – to all you olive oil lovers – not this time)
3. a blender or a food processor
4. an oven and a baking tray

And this is how you make it:

1. pre-heat your oven to 180 degrees
2. spread peanuts evenly on a baking tray
3. put in the oven for about 20 min. Check frequently and shake the tray to roast them evenly
4. take the peanuts out of the oven once nice and golden (and your kitchen starts to smell of roasted peanuts – nice!)
5. put the peanuts into your food processor / a strong blender and pulse several times, followed by running it on a moderate speed for about 5-7 minutes
6. add a tablespoon of vegetable oil to help out with the blending process.
7. You will need to stop the food process and scrape the peanut butter from the sides of the processor to ensure it’s all blended nicely and evenly
8. Keep blending. Once you’re happy with the consistency, transfer to jars and enjoy 🙂

That’s it folks. Easy – peasy really, isn’t it?