Time Saver: Conquering the Mess of Natural Peanut Butter.

I prefer natural peanut butter to supposedly "normal" peanut butter.  I like the very peanutty taste, and I like the fact that nothing is in it but peanuts and salt as opposed to those of "normal" that can include things like molasses and hydrogenated palm oil.  The only draw back of natural peanut butter is that the oil separates from the peanut solids and looks like this:

Photo by Timothy Valentine

No matter how hard I try, when ever I try to stir this peanut butter, I end up with a big, gloppy oil mess.  Not only is this something I don't want to clean up, but if you lose too much peanut oil, the peanut solids become unspreadable.

Now there are gizmos, such as this one at Lehman's that are intended to remedy that situation.  You screw the lid on the top and a corkscrew mechanism stirs everything together.  The only problems with this are that the lid doesn't fit every jar, so it might not work for your brand or your homemade container and you also have a corkscrew thingy to clean when you're done.

I tried putting it in the fridge before opening it, but that just created a solid mass of peanut oil at the top of the container (which is about as appealing as eating vasoline.)  And then it hit me:  I put the lid on the jar tightly and put it in the fridge UPSIDE DOWN.  When I opened it later, it was mixed perfectly and the consistency was just right.  No mess, no waste, no clean up!  Ta Da!

Of Course I Can!

Poster from the USDA "Beans and Bullets" exhibition

While we don't have to worry about ration points today, home canning serves much the same purpose today.  We are taking responsibility for feeding our families with our own hands and avoiding the corporate production of food.  I understand that gardening and canning aren't possible for everyone, but for those of us who can, we should can!  It saves money and worry over what is in our food.