Homemade Peanut Butter

Today is National Food Day and I figured I would make something from scratch and have the root ingredient of the recipe come from a local farmer. I may sound naive, but I had no idea that area farmers grew peanuts. I recently saw raw, dry peanuts at the Minneapolis Farmers Market and decided to give roasting/shelling/peanut-buttering a try. It turns out that the smell of peanuts roasting is quite a warm and inviting smell. The smell alone is worth the extra effort.

If you are wondering what this whole National Food Day is, check out the website here: foodday.org. It's to inform you on how to help support your local farmers and the real food that they grow.

This roasting/shelling/peanut-buttering process took a while, I'm not going to lie. Luckily I had a very patient, wonderful man helping me shell and remove the skins and I am incredibly  grateful for him. Without his help I may have ripped out my hair. But, all that work is worth the end result. The taste of this peanut butter is incredible, it's warm and rich. It's not as smooth as store bought peanut butter, but it's not exactly chunky either. I have a smaller food processor so maybe if you have a larger, more powerful one it will smooth out those little lumps a bit better. I plan on using my peanut butter later in the week for peanut butter cookies. I'll keep you posted on how they taste with the homemade peanut butter!

Homemade Peanut Butter

15 ounces roasted peanuts* (you can either buy them or roast them yourself)

1 teaspoon honey

1 1/2 tablespoon peanut oil

Instructions

Add peanuts and honey into the bowl of a food processor. Process for about 1 minute and then scrape down the sides of bowl. Add peanut oil and continue to process until mixture is smooth. You can store peanut butter in the refrigerator for two weeks.

*Roasting Raw Peanuts

2 pounds of raw in-shell peanuts

2 tablespoons of peanut oil

2 tablespoons of sea salt

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Rinse peanuts under cold water to remove any dirt that was left on them. Pat peanuts dry and toss with peanut oil and salt. Spread peanuts into a thing layer over two half sheet pans.

 Roast for 30 minutes, rotating pans halfway through. Allow peanuts to cool before shelling. To remove the skin, place a kitchen towel on the counter with nuts on top. Fold the towel over and rub the towel against the nuts to separate the skin from the peanuts.

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