Making Peanut Butter

Maisie loves Crunchy Peanut Butter on Toast or just from the spoon. She knows nothing of its long history. 
Here is a little about Peanut Butter

peanut butter 

noun

A paste made from ground roasted peanuts, used as a spread or in cookery.
A history of Peanut butter 

Peanuts were known as early as 950 B.C. and originated in South America. The ancient Incas used peanuts and were known to have made it into a paste-like substance. 

The first commercial peanut crop was grown in Virginia in the early to mid 1840's and in North Carolina beginning around 1818.

According to the Corn Products Company, Dr. Ambrose Straub of St. Louis patented a peanut butter-making machine in 1903 

Dr. John Harvey Kellogg patented a "Process of Preparing Nut Meal" in 1895 and used peanuts.   Joseph Lambert worked for Dr. Kellogg and began selling his own hand-operated peanut butter grinder in 1896. 

Joseph L. Rosenfield invented a churning process that made smooth peanut butter smooth.       In 1928, he licensed his invention to the Pond Company, the makers of Peter Pan peanut butter. In 1932, He began making his own brand of peanut butter, Skippy which included a crunchy style peanut butter.

Agricultural chemist, George Washington Carver discovered three hundred uses for peanuts. He start popularizing uses for peanut products including peanut butter, paper, ink, and oils beginning in 1880.  Carver did not patent peanut butter as he believed food products were all gifts from God. The 1880 date precedes all the above inventors except of course for the Incas, who were first. It was Carver who made peanuts a significant crop in the American South in the early 1900's.

After all peanut butter is just roasted peanuts crushed into a paste. One-half of all edible peanuts produced in the United States are used to make peanut butter and peanut spreads.
By Mary Bellis from About.com Edited by me.

Peanut Butter has been around a long long time and is always being reinvented. 

But some Peanut Butters on the market use partially hydrated oils to keep them from separating, 

then adding sugar, salt and other items I cant pronounce.

I decided to make my own.

After some online research and reading old cookbooks, most recipes is Roasted Peanuts and Oil. Older cookbooks call only for Peanuts.(oil is added to make it spreadable)  That's it, Oh and a blender.            You can add molasses, honey or other sugars.  Salt and other spices. All to your taste.

                            For this recipe I use Roasted Peanuts and Expelled Pressed Peanut Oil. 

Start with one pound of roasted nuts and two teaspoons Peanut Oil.

 Measure 2 cups peanuts.  

Place half in Blender and chop for a few seconds.  

Blend a little longer till a paste forms

Add two Teaspoon peanut oil, it will be a little thin.

Add last half cup of peanuts a few at a time as all at once my clog your blades.  

You can add more Peanuts to make it thicker if you like

 

 I use a small, long spatula to push the peanut butter into the blades, till smooth

  Nice and creamy Peanut Butter.

The Peanut Butter is very warm and will seem a little runny at this point.

For Crunchy Style add a quarter cup nuts and mix in by hand.

 Now that is a CHUNKY Peanut Butter

Store your Yummy Peanut Butter in a air tight container.

Keeps in the fridge for about a week.  

If the oil separates its OK, Leave it out to soften at room temperature and

 mix it all together again till smooth. 

Peanut Butter and Peanuts provide protein, vitamins B3 and E, magnesium, folte, dietary fiver, arginine, and high levels of the antioxidant p-coumaric acid. What this means for your dog is a great source of Protein

This will be the new ingredient in our Peanut Butter bones making them even more natural and wholesome.

Good Luck and I hope you have fun creating new and fun Sweet and Savory Peanut Butters.

Let me know what you Create. Id love trying new recipes

Also any Nut will make a good Butter. Try Walnuts or Almonds.  

Any NUT from a shell.

First Adventure

Working Hard

Some of our treats on display

Our Packaged Treats

Our Sign ( I Volunteer to make the next one)

May 4 was our very first Craft and Vendor Fair.  This first adventure was very successful as we not only sold out treats we made a lot of new friends, contacts and learned what not to do next time.  This was a fundraiser for our Village Volunteer Fire Department, one of the last in the Cincinnati area. There were over 20 folks with items from Tupperware, Pampered Chef, Mary Kay, Candles to a mom and daughter who sold brightly colored bungee cords knotted up into bracelets.  We had a clown making balloon animals. Next to us were two ladies selling hand made jewelry, come to find out one of them lives just down the street, small world. On to planning the next event.

Earth Day

To day is the one day we make a big celebration of what we do all year long, commune with nature.  For this year we have re commited to recycle more, compost better, seek out local business and farms for our shopping and service needs.  All in all stay close to home.

To celebrate we planted 12 saplings.  So in a few years we will have big trees, yaa!!

So, what will you commited to do this Earth Day 2012 to make are planet better for future generations? What will you do for your healt so you can enjoy the future?Here is our electric mower, another way to get healthy. Lol  It can take 2 or 3 days to cut our lawn.  Our egg makers in there coop. 5 eggs daily.  We hope to barter for veggies this seasonand last our new mode of transportation. So much easier to get around the village. 

Hope your Earth Day is filled with ideas to make your planet better for the next generation.

Our Egg Layers

Happy 1st Birthday to our little flock.

Just before spring last year we thought about getting some chickens for our yard, we had enough room 1/3 of an acre and I love eggs. We thought it would be a great and fun way to be urban farmers. We have 2 4x4 planting beds, and a few pots we grow vegetables in. So chickens were a great addition. The are great garbage disposals, eating vegie scraps from the kitchen, the give eggs for food, are food themselves in a couple of years and thier poop is good

for the soil (composting it).

We have a flock of 5. 3 New Hampshire Red (Brown) and 2 Plymouth Rock (White) I think, they look like the pictures in my "Keeping Chickens"book.

They have a Tractor Coop. Its on wheels and moves around the yard, in theory. As we found out our yard is the lowest point in the village and we get all the rain runoff. So our yard is somewhat muddy in the spring. Hard to move the coop around. But the girls like it.

This year we have let the girls have time outside the coop, which they enjoy very much.

Maisie, Rosie and Coco have been introduced the girls. Maisie doesn't care, Coco is not sure what they are and Rosie like to chase them around the yard.
This year we hope to barter for other farm goodies with all the eggs we have left over.

These are the eggs we use in our Baked Dog Treats. Happy Chickens make Great Eggs that make MaiRo & Co dog treats something special.

Have to go, gotta check on the seedlings.

Spring Arrives

Welcome Spring, 

This is a wonderful time of year.

Spring is a time for renewal or Re-Birth. 

Newly planted seedlings coming up, 

the 80 year old Silver Mable getting it leaves, more birds and wild life in the North Fourty and sitting on the patio reading the paper in the morning or enjoying a home cooked meal under the stars... AHHHH    Welcome Spring

Garden

Just some photos of our backyard.

Spring is in the Air

It has been a very mild winter here in Greenhills, Ohio. 
We have had only a couple of days with snow but it did not stay around for very long. 
Our area has had record rain fall and our golf course is now a lake, as it is the holding pen for excess water (as is our backyard.)
The dogs love the mild weather, they stay out most of the day and lay in the winter sun. 
The chickens seem to enjoy the nicer days too but they don't know what zero weather is, they have been lucky.
Daffodils and crocus are coming up nicely.  I planning our garden for spring, lot of veggies and herbs for us and our dog treats.
Talk to ya later.