Strassen Schaden

This is natural peanut butter. No added sugars or any ingredients you can't pronounce, just blended up peanuts.  Yum!

A few important things to note about natural peanut butter:

• When you first purchase the peanut butter you have to stir the peanut oil that sits at the top of the jar into the peanutty goodness.

And here lies my biggest frustration with the packagers of natural peanut butter.  For the love of all things smart and logical LEAVE SOME ROOM AT THE TOP!!!  I mean really...how exactly are you supposed to stir in the 1 inch of oil at the very top of the jar into the other 16 ounces of solid mashed peanuts without getting oil all over the place?  

Unless I find some fabulous tip on Pinterest about how to stir the peanut butter without sloshing oil all over, I'm just going to start dumping that stuff out.  No kidding.  Open jar, dump oil down the drain, eat peanut butter.  Really I'll save myself a lot of work if I do it that way. Last night I opened the jar spilled oil all down the side of the jar and onto the counter, all over my hands and of course it splattered onto my clothes. By the time I was done spilling oil all over I'm pretty sure none of the oil was ever even mixed in to the peanut mash.

Just give me some stirring room!  Is that too much to ask?

• You must keep the peanut butter refrigerated.

Why?  I don't know but that is what the label says.  I don't mind keeping the peanut butter in the fridge I have plenty of room in there but the problem with keeping it there is that it turns into a solid rock.  Do you have any idea what happens to bread when you attempt to spread a solid blob of peanut mash onto it?  It falls apart. I'll spare you that science experiment. The bread turns into swiss cheese and you are then simultaneously "buttering" your hand an the bread.

I won't even go into the effort it  takes to get the peanut butter out of the jar. It is actually a hand and forearm workout to extract the peanut butter from the container.  

Once I get a blob of PB on the bread I just leave it there. I then instruct the consumer of the PBJ to wait until the PB warms up to room temperature and then carefully massage the PB into the bread before consuming.  Its the only way.

• If you want to make peanut butter cookies you will need to use a different, less healthy form of peanut butter.  This stuff doesn't work so well.

I have no explanation for this.  I assume it is because there are no GMO's or sugar or other bad stuff in there that peanut butter cookies require.  Recipes must operate under the assumption that you are embracing the unhealthy version of peanut butter.  If you choose the healthy option your cookie will turn out more like a biscuit and less like a cookie.

Why do I keep buying the peanut butter?  It tastes good. I do feel better about eating peanut butter without extra ingredients.  And Costco sells this crap in a two pack and I'm stuck with this peanut butter until I can use it up!  Ok that last part is only partially true - Costco does sell it in a two-pack but I keep purchasing this type of peanut butter from other stores too.

Last night I was trying so hard to stir in the oil, my hands were getting covered, a mess was being made all over my counter and in my sink, and I was getting so very frustrated.  I wanted to scream "I just want to make a Peanut Butter sandwich with the healthy peanut butter why is this so hard???"

The easy solution is to toss the jar of the good stuff and grab the stuff that is loaded with "spreadable" and with a shelf life of forever.

I'm not ready to throw in the towel and go for the easy solution.

I think this peanut butter is an excellent analogy for the past few weeks of my life. 

I'm trying to give my family the good stuff, but in order to enjoy it, I've got to get my hands dirty.

The good stuff takes work sometimes.  Muscles and a mess.

And I have to tell ya, our family jar of peanut butter has been overflowing oil, getting all clumped up in the fridge, and has not been very spreadable over the past few weeks.

I'm confident that at least once or a dozen times I've thrown my hands up and said "this is so hard!!"

I want the best for the boys and our family, and I suppose sometimes I'm going to have to spill a bunch of oil, clean up some messes, and let things warm up to room temperature before I can enjoy the fruits of my labor.