PB&C (Peanut Butter & Cocoa)

Who doesn’t like a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup?  Peanut butter and chocolate just go together.  But I guarantee that once you make your own PB&C in solid form or smoothie/shake form, you won’t ever want to go back to the prepackaged kind.  The homemade variety tastes better, it’s a whole lot better for your health, AND you probably already have the ingredients for it on hand.

In the interest of brevity, I’ll just put it this way:

Milk Chocolate, Sugar, Cocoa Butter, Chocolate, Milk Non-Fat, Milk Fat, Lactose, Soy Lecithin, PGPR, Emulsifiers, Peanut(s), Dextrose, Salt, TBHQ (off the Reese’s label)

OR

Whole milk , 100% peanut butter, cocoa powder, maple syrup (out of your own blender).

Seriously, you gotta try making your own!  I swear you’ll never want a commercial PB&C again.

Liquid PB&C

Blend 1 cup whole milk (preferably from grass-fed cows, like Calder’s or Organic Valley), 1 T. 100% peanut butter, 1 T. cocoa powder, and 1 T. maple syrup (preferably Grade B) until smooth.  Enjoy!

Traditional PB&C

Dunk a square of dark chocolate (at least 70%; I go for 90%) in 100% peanut butter.  Enjoy!

Indonesian Soup with Peanut Butter & Coconut

In the States, we eat it with jam or in cookies.  If we’re getting really creative, we might throw in an apple or a stalk of celery with raisins.  (Remember your childhood “ant-on-a-log” snacks?)  In other regions of the world, though — notably Africa and southeast Asia — peanut butter is incorporated into everything from porridge to poultry.

Not only do peanuts have a stunningly rich nutritional portfolio, they add depth and creaminess to whatever they come across.  They’re also easy to grow and easy to shove into your pocket and carry with you.  Not bad for a misnamed plant!  (Peanuts aren’t nuts  — they’re actually legumes and grow underground.  Most other nuts grow on trees, which is why allergen labels discern between peanuts and tree nuts.  If you’re anywhere outside of the U.S., in fact, you would be calling peanuts “groundnuts.”)

Peanut butter is an intrinsic element of the sauce served in Thai restaurants alongside chicken satay, and peanut butter also forms the base flavors for Indonesian soups and sauces.  (Along with coconut, lime, and cilantro.)  Groundnut stew can be found across the African continent, and like their counterparts in southeast Asia, African cooks also like to pair PB with their poultry dishes.  I think we ought to use PB more often in our own meals — we’re missing out!

An easy way to segue into using PB in savory settings is to try this simple glaze for carrots.  You might want to use unsalted PB since you’ll be using soy sauce as well.

Peanut Butter-Maple Carrots

Simmer carrots in boiling water for about 5 minutes, then drain and set aside.  In a separate bowl, stir together soy sauce, maple syrup, and PB.  While you can adjust the amounts as you see fit, the basic proportions are equal parts soy and maple + a spoonful of PB.  (I like PB a lot, so I would use 4 T. of soy, 4 T. of maple, and 3 T. of PB for about 8 carrots.)

Sautée PB mixture and cooked carrots in a nonstick pan over medium-low heat for about 8 minutes, stirring often to prevent the maple from clotting and scorching.  Serve hot.  (Tip:  because this is such a flavorful side dish, it would make a great side to pass at Thanksgiving!)

Enjoy!

PB & J Pancake "Sandwich"

Technically, a sandwich is a bready dough filled with something.  Hoagies, gyros, calzones, quesadillas … they all fall into the “sandwich” category.  You can stuff them with veggies or meats or cheeses or herbs or condiments or whatever your tongue desires.  Sandwiches are, in short, the ultimate custom dish.

In the spirit of adding to the roster, I’d like to introduce my new pancake sandwich concept — not only is it a great way to elevate a mundane filling to triple-decker status, it’s a great way to use up leftover pancakes.  In this case, I warmed up three silver-dollar-sized pancakes I’d enjoyed for breakfast the previous morning (I made them with cornmeal and quinoa, but any type of flour makes great pancakes to use with savory fillings), then liberally doused them with apricot jam and crunchy 100% PB.  The result?  One heck of a tasty sandwich!

The next time you have leftover pancakes and some random sandwich fillings, I heartily suggest you try coming up with your own triple-decker.  Or quadruple-decker, or even quintuple decker.  Maybe pancake sandwiches could become the next dinner party sensation:  just whip up a few batches of ‘cakes, lay out some assorted sandwich insides, and step back to see what your guests come up with.  You could even make pancake ice cream sandwiches for dessert!

Peanut-Butter Cinnamon Cookies

What’s your style — crunchy or creamy?  Salted or un-?  Virginia or Valencia?  Seems like there are just as many varieties of peanut butter as there are wines.  (And we haven’t even gotten into blanching or skins…)

I think the #1 thing you can do with really top-notch organic 100% peanut butter is use it as a dip for 90% dark chocolate — it’s Reese’s magnified by 100!  The second-best thing you can do is make extreme-style PB cookies…which I’ve done here.  Using unrefined, straight-from-the-shell peanut oil adds even more flavor, and using honey in addition to sucanat gives the cookies more depth and keeps them soft and chewy.  (Honey is a natural humectant, which means that it absorbs water from the air and therefore maintains a nice moist cookie.)  Cinnamon rounds out the peanut-and-honey base with its warm tones.

Peanut-Butter-Cinnamon Cookies*

*Note:  these cookies are gluten-free.  To make them with standard wheat flour, simply use 1 teaspoon of baking powder instead of 2.  All other measurements stay the same.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease two cookie sheets or line them with parchment paper.

1/4 cup butter, melted
1/4 cup unrefined peanut oil
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
1 cup 100% natural peanut butter (crunchy or creamy, salted or un-, Valencia or Virginia…it’s your call)
1/2 cup sucanat
1/4 cup honey
1 tsp. sea salt (you might want to omit this if you’ve used salted butter and salted PB)
1 tsp. cinnamon
2 tsp. baking powder
2 eggs
2 cups teff or brown rice flour (1 cup of brown rice + 1 cup of teff is also a nice combination)
1/2 cup crushed/chopped peanuts (optional)

In large bowl, mix butter, peanut oil, applesauce, and peanut butter. Add sucanat, honey, sea salt, cinnamon, and baking powder and thoroughly combine. Stir in eggs, then flour. (You can either use a blender or a wooden spoon to mix the batter — you’re not trying to aerate this the way you would a lighter cookie or cake.)  Stir in crushed or chopped peanuts if you really want to go nuts.

Use a teaspoon to drop rounds of batter onto the cookie sheets. If you want them round and a bit pouffy, leave them as they are; if you want your cookies to be a bit flatter, you can press them down lightly with a greased fork (that will also give them an interesting ridged pattern on top).

Bake for about 10 minutes, then remove from oven and let cool for another 10 minutes before removing the cookies with a spatula. Sprinkle additional cinnamon over them just before serving if desired.  Store uneaten cookies in a tin, jar, or any other airtight container.

Enjoy!

A Trio of Sandwiches

Although John Montagu–the 4th Earl of Sandwich–probably didn’t invent one of the staples of modern-day American cuisine, he certainly ensured its popularity.  What other eighteenth-century dish is served in almost every restaurant in the country?

The sandwich is truly an elegant solution:  it allows for extreme creativity in both base and toppings, it’s a great way to use leftovers, and you can (usually) eat one without getting your hands too messy.  The sandwich’s only downfall is that it tends to get shoehorned into mediocrity:  more often than not, it’s composed of PB&J, ham and swiss, or (if it’s lucky) barbecued chicken and onions.  But why stick to such a limited repertoire?

As you can see in this picture, a sandwich can be whatever you want it to be.  Witness the Turkey, Hummus & Carrot sandwich, the PB & Apple sandwich, and the Goat Cheese & Fig Jam sandwich, all on whole-wheat Tuscan bread.  (Also known as The Leftovers I Had in My Fridge That Night sandwiches.)

So the next time you think about fixing yourself a sandwich, go wild!  Remember:  sandwiches come with everything except rules.