Peanut! Peanut Butter!

. . . and Jelly.

Actually, I prefer just peanut butter. Why taint a perfectly good sandwich. Or if you must put jelly on then just a light touch will do.

Peanut butter goes with everything! It's perfect with both sweet and savory foods.

I have been successful in passing on my devotion to peanut butter and maple syrup on pancakes, waffles, or french toast. Lyra has a waffle with peanut butter on most mornings. She alternates between having it with apple butter*, syrup, or cinnamon sugar. The perfect breakfast also has a side of crispy bacon to dip in the syrup. Peanut butter, bacon, and syrup - heaven.

Peanut butter is also good on ice cream - with a nice chocolate syrup drizzled over the top. Yum. Did you ever try that Chubby Hubby ice cream from Ben & Jerry's? Pretzel nuggets stuffed with peanut butter and coated with chocolate in a vanilla ice cream with chocolate and peanut butter swirls.

Or how about peanut butter on a wedge of mild cheddar cheese - uh huh. My dad would garnish with a bit of honey. Speaking of which, a peanut butter and honey mixture is nirvana as a spread for sandwiches or crackers or celery sticks.

Peanut butter on an Oscar Meyer bologna sandwich (and I could only spell that by singing the song - you know the song, go ahead, hum it.) Or peanut butter and Miracle Whip on gooey white bread.

Have you ever made satay sauce for chicken or beef skewers? Mix peanut butter with chillies, soy sauce and sesame oil. Or if you mix peanut butter with tomato paste and broth it makes a great sauce for baking chicken. My mom should have never told us there was peanut butter in that sauce. Even in my peanut butter lovin' family it was a bit odd. But we ate it.

Many years ago, I switched to natural peanut butters and now I'm a peanut butter snob. Russ was actually making peanut butter for us from peanuts he bought at the co-op. His ratio was 1/3 salted to 2/3 unsalted. Then grind for a million years in the food processor. My preference is to add a little peanut oil - otherwise it's a bit too crumbly and hard to spread. Recently Russ bought cheap peanut butter at the store here - yuck. It's like eating peanut flavored oily mouth coating.

I don't even need to mention my love of peanut butter cookies. Or peanut butter on graham crackers. Even better, peanut butter on Keebler Deluxe Grahams (hm-hum-hm-hm-hm duh-di-duh-di-duh-duh, they're made by little elves in their hollow trees.) Not such a big fan of the Nutter Butter cookies - too sweet. But if you put a bit of peanut butter on top of them that sets them right.

You know what I have never had? A fluffernutter sandwich. I'm afraid to try - I'm sure it's heaven and then it will be just another devotion that I have to the family of peanut butter loveliness.

I could go on about peanut butter on apple slices; in a yogurt smoothie; dotted with raisins on brown bread, or just straight from the jar on a spoon. But I'll stop here. I need to go make myself a snack.


*Note to Grammy: We're getting dangerously low on apple butter.

Mamacita said...
Wow. I have the wierdest craving for some peanut butter...mine must be extra crunchy!
I'm not so picky about that. Smooth, crunchy, extra cruncy each have their own place in my heart.