What We Learned to Do and Watch Ingredients, you may be surprised

 During this sugar fast, I had noticed that the Aldi's peanut butter I was using had 2 grams of added sugar. At first I didn't think that was a big deal. Especially since I didn't want to spend the big bucks to get the natural peanut butter that had none. Thankfully my Mom bought me a jar of Smuckers Peanut Butter. Yummy! It was delicious. But again, I did not want to have to pay $4 something for peanut butter. 

Then I made a trip to Winco- It's about a 30 minute drive or so - so I don't make it very often. While there I found that they have machines that you can grind peanuts into peanut butter. $1.88 a pound!! They also have honey nut peanut butter, cashew butter, and almond butter you can grind. These cost more per pound. 

When I got home I realized that the peanut butter was still pretty thick, not creamy like the Smuckers. So what was I going to do? My husband started looking at what we could do here at home to make peanut butter. Found some reasonable machines on Amazon- with, of course, reviews stating that the machines didn't last long. Then he did more research and found out that we would put peanuts in the food processor and make it ourselves. Thankfully we had a jar of peanuts and so we began making peanut butter. It was fun to watch it evolve from peanuts all the way to creamy peanut butter. You just have to mix it long enough to get there. We scooped the peanut butter into half pint canning jelly jars. It is very good! Just like smuckers!  

And all that is in our peanut butter is roasted peanuts and 2 pinches of salt. 

Be sure and look at the ingredients in the natural peanut butters- I was surprised to see palm oil in some that said they were natural. It's sad because I am sure there are many people out there eating what they think is natural peanut but but it has ingredients that you may not want to be putting in your body. I know I don't want palm oil in my peanut butter. Anyway this is why am sharing this experence so you will know to be watching and how it is to make your own. Oh and by the way- if you have a Winco near by and you grind some peanuts to make peanut butter but you want it creamier- you can put it in your food processor and blend some more till it is creamy!!