Thursday, July 17, 2008

Homemade PB&J



Logan decided it would be fun to make a totally homemade PB&J, so we set out this weekend to make that happen.


I had already made strawberry jam to use. So, I made a loaf of whole wheat bread, that didn't rise very well. And we decided to make our own peanut butter. I looked up a few recipes and it turns out to be pretty easy. We used 1 cup of shelled roasted unsalted peanuts, mixed it with 2 tsps of oil and a dash of salt. It all went into the food processor and we processed it until it got smooth. Unfortunately, the amount we had in the food processor was too small so it never got totally smooth. So, we ended up with a more old-fashioned gritty type of PB. My smaller food processor is packed up and I didn't want to hunt it down so we made due.

It all combined together to make a fairly decent sandwich. The bread was a little small and dense and the peanut butter a little gritty, but it was certainly edible.

I'm going to a friend's house tomorrow to get bread baking lessons. My bread always tastes fine but doesn't rise well so it ends up dense.

Our ultimate goal is to make a totally home grown PB&J, but that will be a few years in the making.

13 comments:

Danni said...

Wow - I'm impressed.
And did Logan have as much fun as he thought he would. How cool that this was his idea!

Melody said...

Good for you! I've never made peanut butter, but maybe I'll have to try. :-)

Melody said...

BTW, I think that blogger changes the image sideways because it is too wide to fit with your links on the right.

Christy said...

Logan enjoyed making and eating the sandwich.

Melody - That could be it, but I resize all my pictures to the same size and it only happens with some of them. Next time it happens I'll try making the pictures smaller before uploading them. Rotating them doesn't help at all. I really think it is a bug with blogger.

Christy said...

Melody - I just made the picture smaller and it loaded correctly so I will try that on the others that loaded incorrectly. It could be coincidence or you could be right.

linda m said...

Way to go!!! I'm very impressed. It sure does look good. Too bad Grandpa Joe didn't get any PB, he loves the chunky kind.

Wendy said...

When you do manage your homegrown PB&J, I'll be a wee bit jealous ;). My girls LOVE PB&J, but peanuts aren't something we're going to grow here in Maine ... especially not on a mere quarter acre ;).

I love that it was Logan's idea. It's very cool when kids come up with ideas for delicious and nutritious local meals :).

Ron said...

I had PB&J for lunch today. What a wonderful thing. The grittier the better. :)

Ron

Laughing Orca Ranch said...

Well it sure looks good. Did Logan enjoy his own meal he designed and created?

If you end up in the south, you'll be able to grow your own peanuts or buy them from local farms.

One of my favorite snacks, living in South Carolina, was boiled peanuts. I always bought the spicy ones and I'm drooling right now thinking of their yummyness!

Laughing Orca Ranch said...

Oh, and I meant to add that some of my picture load up sideways, too. I have no idea why, but if I reload them again, sometimes they just end up the right way up on their own.
Or if not, then I go into my photo editing and flip my photo to the opposite side or even upside down, and then reload them onto my blog and that always does the trick.

I agree with you. I think it's a weird glitch in Blogger. :P

Anonymous said...

I have wanted to try homemade peanut butter. Your bread looked fine to me. Do you use a bread machine?
On your question about Belle, the cow. We haven't milked her. We use her as a nurse cow but as soon as Buckeye is weaned we are going to give Belle a rest.
Logan, that was a great idea on the homemade PB&J.
Have a great weekend!

Christy said...

I've tried turning the pictures every which way and if they are loading sideways they keep doing it. I hope re-sizing them smaller will solve the problem.

I don't use a bread machine. The bread was ok, it just didn't rise much after shaping so the bread was very short and dense. It was actually too small for a piece of cheese. My friend thinks it may be the pans I'm using so I'm going to get a few new bread pans that should work better.

Carolyn said...

Just stopped by for a visit. I wanted to say Hi and nice Blog!

Carolyn