Ετικέτες
As years pass and as I get new experiences from life, more and more often I find that the most beautiful things are often the simplest too. No special conditions -besides health- are essential in order to enjoy a walk in the sun and be filled with its warmth, to give and to let ourselves return a smile, to spend time with our friends, to enjoy the freshness and sweetness of a freshly cut fruit, to let ourselves be free to think and to do.
Many times people ask me about the costs of veganism, considering it unbearable or perhaps hoping to block their turn to it, placing it in the category «luxury». To me it’ s a great pleasure when I reply that it costs a little less than a standard, non- herbivore diet. In fact it doesn’t require some special food from the other side of the planet or star dust from Venus to feed ourselves properly.
Particularly when we undertake to prepare our food, with simple but high in quality ingredients -from boiled vegetables or pulses to a delicate seed cheese; the cost of the herbivore diet is minimal and on the other hand the benefits are numerous.
A very nutritious food, perfect for our breakfast or our evening cravings is peanut butter. It is also so easy to prepare that we can always keep a jar of peanut butter in our fridge. The only requirement is to have a good food processor and of course good mood -the necessary software for any successful recipe!
The cost for a pound of peanut butter does not exceed 2-3 euros.
Usually when I make peanut butter, I use raw peanuts, which I bake by myself in the oven. I love the process because the whole house smells amazing and the hot, freshly made peanut butter has a unique earthy, filling flavor. However if we have no time available, we can always buy roasted peanuts, which can be skinned easily and use them directly for our recipe.
Ingredients
- ½ pound ground peanuts raw or roasted
- 1 tsp salt of your choice
- 1 tbsp raw sugar (optional)
Method
- Bake peanuts for 15-20 minutes at 180 ° C until golden brown and set aside for 15 minutes to cool. If we use roasted peanuts we can omit this step.
- Remove the skins.
- Place the peeled peanuts with salt in the bowl of your food processor and process at medium speed for 5 minutes until a homogeneous and creamy paste is formed. In between you can stop the food processor and clean the sides of it’s bowl with a wooden or silicon spoon. If the environment is cold, you can heat peanuts again in the oven for 1-2 minutes before pulping. Heat enhances the whole process.
- If you want to have a crunchy peanut butter, add a handful of roasted peanuts during the last minute of the process.
- Place peanut butter in a clean and sterilized jar and keep it sealed airtight in the refrigerator.
Note: Peanuts and nuts in general are very perishable foods especially when left unrefrigerated. So when we skin them it is advisable to inspect and remove those that have strange color or seem to have developed mold within them.
If we do not have time to prepare ourselves peanut butter and we want to buy packaged, we must be careful with the ingredients written on the labels, as in many brands sugar and hydrogenated fat or palm oil are added.