With my recent cooking debacle as depicted in Attack of the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Blob, I wanted to assure my readers that not everything that comes out of my kitchen is a complete disaster.  I have, in fact, found the Holy Grail of kitchen time/money hacks: peanut butter.

Like marshmallows, my family can put some peanut butter away.  Seriously, we should buy stock in the shit.  For many years, I was certain that Jameson was going to turn into a peanut butter and honey sandwich.  That was all he would eat: breakfast, lunch and dinner.  My husband and I eat peanut butter on our Rye bread in the morning, Alaina loves it on her English Muffins, and MacKenzie has taken up Jameson’s love of PB&H sandwiches.

When I found this cost-effective, simple and easy way to make peanut butter, I was in.  (Don’t worry, I’m not Martha Stewart playing some kind of a sick joke on unsuspecting people with an easy marshmallow recipe <grumble, grumble=””>)  The trick to this peanut butter being so cost-efficient though, is to buy bulk peanuts. I am always looking out for a good deal, but for the most part, the best place to buy bulk peanuts are those big hardware or farm stores like Menard’s or Rural King.  Farmers eat a lot of peanuts, I guess.

First, pour peanuts into your food processor with the chopping attachment installed.  I like to use a little honey-roasted and then finish up with regular salted peanuts.  This is completely to taste.  Fill your processor about half full.

Next, put the lid on your food processor, lock that bad boy in place, and turn it on.  This is going to be the hardest part of the whole thing…. you have to be patient.  The peanuts will first be ground into little tiny peanuts.  Before you start cussing me out, What the hell, Cari?!  I thought we were making peanut butter, not ground peanuts…. Take a deep breath, grab a cup of coffee or a glass of wine or a shot of Jack Daniels, whatever your thing is, and wait……

After about three minutes, the ground peanuts will turn into a ball of peanuts.  Wait for it…. After about five minutes, the heat from the chopping attachment slicing through this peanut ball will start to liquefy the blob, and voila, you have peanut butter!  Pour (yes, Martha, pour means pour in this instance) your peanut butter into your container of choice.  I use a quart canning jar because, frankly I have about a million of them, and I get to use the cute little chalkboard stickers my sister got me for Christmas last year!

We refrigerate our peanut butter to help solidify it a bit more, but I am sure it is perfectly fine in the cupboard.  Enjoy!