Homemade Peanut Butter

I know I'm not the only one that's ever wanted to try something just for the fun of it. I'm not weird, am I? Like making peanut butter. We actually have two jars in our cupboard, but we also had a big bowl of peanuts in their shells leftover from our Christmas stockings. I know it's probably more expensive, more work, and more time-consuming than just grabbing a jar off the shelf at the grocery store, but I wanted to try to make it. No specific reason. Maybe I wanted to see if it was any good. Or if would actually be worth making it ourselves so we would know all the ingredients that go into it. Or maybe I just have way too much time on my hands. That last one could be it....

Either way, I did it. Actually, we did it. (My husband helped me remove all the shells which, after all, was the hardest part.) You could actually follow these instructions to make creamy or crunchy peanut butter. We decided to make crunchy because it's my husband's favorite, and also, there is a bit of a grainy texture to it. However, if you make it crunchy peanut butter, you can't even tell. (If you know how the big "peanut butter companies" make their spread nice and creamy, please share.)

We started by removing all the shells until we had about 1 1/2 cups of peanuts. 

(These were "salted in the shell" peanuts.)

Setting 1/4 cup of the peanuts aside, we put 1 1/4 cups of the peanuts in the food processor.

We blended it until it began looking like a graham cracker crust mixture.

(Maybe if we blended it more at this point, it would have been creamier....?)

From there we added 1 1/2 teaspoons of coconut oil and a pinch of salt.

Blend, blend, blend.

(If you were just making creamy peanut butter, just pour it into the jar and toss it in the fridge to set. If you're making crunchy, continue with the next step.)

Dump in the 1/4 cup of peanuts that you had set aside earlier.

Pulse it a couple times just to break the peanuts up a bit.

Pour it into your container, cover, and place it in the refrigerator. 

(It's pretty runny when you put it in the fridge. Ours took about 3-4 hours to set completely.)

Once it has set, eat it up! :)

 To sum up the experience:

It wasn't more expensive because I already had everything I needed.

It was a little time-consuming to remove all the shells, but it wasn't hard work.

It was very good.

It was worth it to make it ourselves this time. I won't be switching over to using only homemade peanut butter any time soon, but it was fun to experiment and know that we can make it ourselves.

As far as too much time on my hands? Yeah, that's probably true. :)