Anyway, back to peanut butter. There is just something about human nature that makes us want what we can't have. As a child I was allergic to peanuts, oranges, and chocolate (gasp!). Can you imagine the horror of growing up not being able to have pb&j sandwiches? Ok - oranges I could live without, but chocolate chip cookies? Chocolate cake? Brownies? And for some reason my parents also thought I was allergic to Cheerios. Hmmph.
When you are told you can't have certain things, those are exactly the things you crave, and crave I did. They tried giving me substitutes like carob - which is a sick form of fake chocolate that really is not fit for human consumption. But I choked down a carob bar now and again and tried really, really hard to pretend it was real chocolate and that I liked it. My mom would make butterscotch chip cookies and "blonde brownies" for me, which were actually really good, but again - not chocolate. And my parents were really faithful about not having chocolate around the house so as not to make me feel bad. So everyone was deprived. (Now that I think about it, I bet they had a secret stash that I never knew about. I'll have to call my sister).
I appreciate all of their efforts to make up for my depravity, I really do. It really was thoughtful of them. Except for one thing. I found out a just a couple years ago when I went through allergy testing and they got the records from my childhood doctor, that I NEVER WAS ALLERGIC TO ANY OF IT!!!! The allergy tests I had done as a kid (and cried through because back then they put needles in your back) and the tests I had done as an adult both had the same conclusion: I was allergic to cats and trees. That's it. Cats and trees. Really?? Are you SURE??? I even asked for copies of both sets of tests and sho 'nuff, cats and trees. Everything else...negative.
What the heck?? After getting through the shock of it, I replayed all of the scenarios in my mind on the way home from the dr's office.....dumping out my buckets of candy on the floor every halloween night and trading all of my Snickers and M&M's with my siblings for their Smarties and those disgusting taffy candies in the orange and black wrappers...not joining "Brownies" as a little girl even though I really wanted to but I was secretly afraid that they would be serving brownies at every meeting and I would be too embarassed to tell everyone that I couldn't have any.
But I am over it now. I have let it go. And I realize maybe it's a good thing because at least 90% of the extra weight I have gained as an adult is probably peanut butter toast and various indulgences of chocolate. (The other 10% is butter, but we won't get into that right now). What if my chocolate obsession would have started in childhood? Gah!
Anyway, back to peanut butter. I read on one of my favorite blogs recently about a recipe for "nut butter" that had me salivating ever since. So the other night I bought the ingredients, modified the recipe a bit, and came up with my very own "Nutty Butter" and let me tell you..........it's AWESOME!!!
Nutty Butter
1 c. toasted almonds
1/2 c. toasted cashews
1/2 c. sunflower seeds
chop all these up well...
Mix together:
1 & 1/4 jars peanut butter (28 oz. jars)
1/2 jar cashew butter
1/8 c. tahini (sunflower seed paste)
2 (heaping) tablespoons Nutella
a big squirt of honey (prolly about 2-3 tablespoons)
Stir in the nut & seed mixture, and lick the bowl because it's THAT good!!
Lisa, it LOOKS that GOOD!
ReplyDeleteI loved, loved, loved this post. It made me miss my Grandma, made me feel so bad for you, but most of all it made me laugh so much and forget that there is still loads of laundry, dirty diapers, and checkbooks to balance. Thanks for the laugh!
xoxo, Veronica in CA
p.s. Hmm, was it supposed to be funny? Guess it was, but at your expense. Hope you don't mind. ;0)
Haha...yes it was supposed to be funny! You can laugh at me anytime :) And writing this made me miss my grandma too.
ReplyDeleteThat is too funny - I mean in hindsight of course and thank goodness you really were not allergic or your grandma may have killed you sneaking you that peanut butter, but grandmas always know best.
ReplyDeleteWere you ever told you were allergic to cats and trees too?
I know...I never understood why peanut allergies can be so deadly. Yikes!
ReplyDeleteI was also supposedly allergic to dogs and cats, feathers, hay....pretty much everything. My parents bought me non-allergenic pillows and everything. They swear that they were told to do all of those things -it was even the doctor who told them about carob. My husband thinks that maybe the doctor was reading the wrong file and giving someone else's test results to my parents. That would make sense to me.
Do you need my address so you can send me a jar?
ReplyDeleteHaha...sure! Email me :)
ReplyDelete