The 100th Post

In honor of this being my 100th post, I am celebrating two of my all-time favorites and staples for survival: PB&J.

Actually, these recipes are for maple almond butter and rhubarb chutney/jam. But the idea is the same.

Almond Butter: Any kind of nut just needs to be thrown in the food processor alone and it will eventually make a nut butter. No added oils or stabilizers or flavorings or even sugar needed. I did add in some maple syrup to mine because I'm always trying to find a way to use the stuff. Once you add the stickiness though, you gotta work the butter a bit to make sure it doesn't just form a big ball (ha, "work the butter" sounds like a Ms. Jay quote). Use a rubber or silicone spatula, because less butter will stick to it.

Mine stayed a bit mealy because the screeching noise of nuts in a food processor got to The Boy. But it's all good in the hood because I like crunchy over creamy anyway.
Also, I'm realizing this was kind of a silly exercise since we have two kinds of organic PB and sunbutter at the house already (thanks for the "emptying the fridge" moveout donation, Jay and Kate!)

Rhubarb Jam: We realized earlier this week that we have a rhubarb plant growing in the yard (and yet my herbs and tomatoes are depressingly absent). Since they look just like the ones for sale in the produce section, I decided it must be okay to try to cook with them. Luckily I did remember something about rhubarb being toxic, so thank goodness for the internet on that one. The green leaves are toxic, but the red stalks are a-ok. (Well, at least I've survived thus far).

Best I can figure, this turned into a jam (but it could be a chutney or some kind of preserves, there seems to be quite a debate/mass confusion going on). It pretty much mirrors my cranberry sauce recipe for Thanksgiving.

Chop the rhubarb into 1 inch pieces, put into boiling water with sugar (I would use as little water as it takes to get the rhubarb covered because rhubarb has a lot of water in it and takes forever to boil down). I used 1/2 c. of sugar, because rhubarb is actually a vegetable and not all that sweet. You could put strawberries or orange juice in instead and lower the sugar, which is cool and okay. As it boils down (over the course of an hour or so), add in spices at your leisure. I was thinking more chutney at the time, so I put in red and yellow curry (just a teensy bit), garam masala, nutmeg, and mad amounts of cinnamon. Later I added a chai tea bag because it just seemed like a good call. I didn't leave it in for very long because the paper tab caught on fire resting on the side of the pot. Every good dish loves some drama. I added a little capful of vanilla extract as well.

Most important: you gotta stir rather diligently the whole time because the sugar can settle and burn on the bottom (I witnessed this last weekend trying to candy orange slices-- and that sugar burn is still not scraping off the bottom). When you've got the consistency of a jam, scoop it into a glass jar and let it cool before covering with the canning jar top.

Now I'll just have to figure out how to master some homemade bread to have the greatest, most DNA-filled sandwich ever.