Honey Peanut Butter

How many of you have ever grabbed a spoon, dunked it in an obliging jar of peanut butter, and called the rest history? Anyone?

I would raise my hand, but it’s busy alternately typing and scooping up yet another spoonful of this creamy homemade honey peanut butter. Think I’m lying? Try me.

Wait, no. You can try me in about ten minutes, when I’ve stopped eating this addicting nut butter and washed my hands. Then you can try me.

While you’re waiting for me to get my gunky fingers licked clean, I want to tell you about LACMA, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. My friend from Berkeley was visiting this weekend, and we randomly came across the most amazing and unexpected thing! Well, not the most amazing (Disneyland has that superlative covered, thank you very much) or most unexpected (it was a museum of, er, art, after all), but it was a close one. 

It was Magritte’s famous picture: The Treachery of Images, also known by its caption, Ceci n’est pas une pipe (or “This is not a pipe”).

I stood in front of this picture for at least five minutes. Pretty neat to think about though, huh? I’ve always loved studying ideas of representation and deconstruction, so this painting is right up my alley. (Wikipedia has some cool stuff to say about it, too.)

I remember seeing the Mona Lisa for the first time in seventh grade and feeling really, really underwhelmed. Not so with my dear friend Magritte!

Yet another A-list hard-hitter was the original Andy Warhol tomato can series exhibit. I don’t know why I didn’t expect this stuff in a huge museum of art, but I was pretty much floored when I suddenly found myself nose-to-nose with the paintings, which were hanging there just like everything else. Unassuming, but oh-so rich!

And of course, I had to do my own artsy rendition before I left:

We also went shmucking around some of the high-end stores in Santa Monica that morning, looking for cute, artsy, and essentially useless (but did I mention incredibly cute?) items in the stores.

I was seriously tempted by this mug because of its truth value:

In the new Target they’ve built in our area (probably the only perk of living in a college town that wholeheartedly supports corporate enterprises), they had these cute signs, too:

Of course, after looking at the price tag for all of this stuff, I decided to go with the bulk-package box of peanuts for my new mini-sized homemade processor. You know, the one that I’m deathly afraid of. Because of its massive blade and capacity to pull a Queen of Hearts execution on me at any moment. That food processor.

Thankfully for this blog, I’m really good at conquering my fears. I once fought off the ants invading my apartment bedroom all by myself, even though I’ve never purposely killed an ant in my life. And even though I cried like a baby after I killed one I found crawling on my bedside table, and even though I only killed it because somehow I had accidentally squashed part of it and it looked like it would have been in terrible pain. And even though I had to use a spray can of Raid to get rid of the ant line and cried after that, too. And even though I only sucked it up and did this because my dad threatened to fly all the way down to do it for me if I couldn’t.

Yeah, I’m really brave. I’d give Merida a run for her money, for sure.

But back to peanut butter. Right.

This stuff is insanely easy to make. No food processor fears here! Even for a huge wimp like me.

Happy reading, and happy eatings!

Honey Peanut Butter

Ingredients:

• 2 cups peanuts, salted and/or honey-roasted
• 1 tablespoon honey (if peanuts are not honey-roasted)

Directions:

1. Pour peanuts into food processor; lock the lid and machine into place. Grind for approximately 8-10 minutes total, allowing your food processor to rest every 30 seconds or so. Throughout the grinding process, your peanuts should go from finely crushed, to an oily paste, to a larger clump, and then to a creamy and smooth nut butter consistency.
2. When your peanut butter is creamy and almost liquidly, remove it from processor. Stir in honey quickly.
3. Serve with anything!