The Better Butter

I have a confession to make.

Ever since I was a little girl, I haven't liked peanut butter. It's horrifying, I know. 

But I survived. So when I went to go lose the weight, I really didn't miss it because of its high calorie count. I knew it was all good fat but, well, I just didn't eat it. So when I found out about this "low calorie" product, called better n peanut butter, that was made from defatted peanut flour, peanut butter, and peanut oils, I didn't know what to make of it. 

So I picked up a jar at Trader Joe's, and it was love from there. It's so sweet, creamy, and delish. AND it only had 50 calories and 1 gram of fat per tablespoon. I had it made.

But when I went natural, I wanted to integrate real peanut butter into my diet. Sadly, I still had that haunting problem; I don't like peanut butter. So I started playing around on the Internet, and I found this amazing blog called Eating Bird Food, written by a lovely sounding and knowledgeable woman named Brittany. I haven't met her, but I would be SO honored to, and to be under her wing, and I plan on emailing her soon. So on her website I saw recipes for nut butters, along with links to other blogs such as The Edible Perspective, that had recipes to nut butter recipes, too. So I finally treated myself to a food processor (Don't try making nut butter in a food chopper, it doesn't work. Not that I would know.) So into the processor went...

Cinnamon Honey (or Maple Syrup) Peanut Butter

1 cup of dry roasted unsalted peanuts

1T Stevia (more sweetness)

1-2t cinnamon

about 1 1/2t honey (or 3 tbs. maple syrup)

My good old Safeway dry roasted unsalted peanuts.

Add ONLY THE PEANUTS. Sorry, but I didn't want you to miss that.

Not quite ready yet. (It never hurts to check with a steak knife.)

So here I added the cinnamon, stevia, and maple syrup. I  used maple syrup for this batch, and honey for the next one.

This is why I am the Fiasco Foodie. This is a fiasco right here. Can anyone mess peanut butter up? I can. Apparently, I added WAY to much maple syrup, and in a feeble attempt to thin everything out, I added water. Don't ever, ever do that. Ever.

So there it is. My sad, sad "butter."The good news is that it's only about 73 calories a tablespoon. The bad news is that in no way shape or form is it a peanut butter. That is pretty bad news. So I think I'm going to make an attempt to salvage it in some sort of peanut sauce. More on that later...

Round 2 (I really hope this goes better.)

Fingers crossed...

...it's still going...

Beautiful.

So here I added my cinnamon and honey. I said "about" for the honey in the ingredient list because I used a modest knife-ful, and not an actual measuring utensil. (Sorry about that. Good luck interpreting my strange knife conversions.;) By the way, see that little bit of peanut butter missing from the right corner? That was my sampling. It was good.)

So there it is, all blended and ready to be devoured. It actually worked! I'm so excited. And here's some of the best part, even I, peanut butter non-believer, am hooked. It's so creamy, smooth, light, and good. If you luck out like I seemed to have, it will also have the perfect amount of sweetness. My mom  suggested I rename it Ambrosia butter, because she said it was the best nut butter she has ever had. And my mom loves peanut butter.

And all is right in the nutty world for now.

Enjoy!

-Kelly M.