MMmmmm... Food Werx Vol. 1

Hi all! (all both of you!)

So, I had been thinking about nutritional profiles (see, it's not all about flying anymore!) and peanuts.

Peanuts, properly, are legumes, like beans, etc. Somewhere in here I am sure is part of the source for peanut allergies that are not nut allergies in general, but since I am behind in my reading and have not yet got to that chapter, I will leave off that for now.

So, I rather like the nutrition of cashews versus peanuts, especially the Vitamin K in cashews. So, since I love peanut butter, why not try to make my own cashew butter? I happened to buy some cashews for munching, and I was not out of them yet!

So, I read up a little bit, and found that a good first step is to 'dry roast' the cashews. This can be accomplished a couple of different ways at home, but the simplest is to toss them into a pan and heat them

up, so that they release their oils more freely. Easy way to tell, is the rom starts smelling like roasted nuts. Simple, eh? On the right is a photo of the action--

I did not have a large bunch of nuts to start with, though. Most of what I had read said that they will reduce in volume by about 75%, so you need to start with a fairly large amount. The

problem that you would run into is that there is not enough oil for them to start sticking together once they are blended, so mostly you would

have powdered nuts. I am sure there is a critical point for that, and I am also sure I was below it in volume!

So, with the smell of roasted cashews

filling the kitchen, I popped them into my trusty (and almost 20 year old) blender. They did not take up a great deal of room, and I was pretty sure that was a bad sign.

So I blended... and blended... and finally, I had a fine cashew-y powder. Ok, that was not great, but maybe I could still make it into something. That is when I remembered about there not being enough oil for them to coagulate into 'butter.' Well, what better to use, then butter? I spooned about 1/4 Tablespoon of butter in, and it all came together nicely. Not the best, but still, it was better than trying to spread cashew powder into a sandwich!

Results--

This was the cashew butter right as it came out of the blender. A little grainy, but I think if I used a real food processor, I could get rid of most of the grainy-ness, and I certainly want to incorporate more 'chunks' of cashews, so I will reserve some crushed pieces to add in after the pureeing.

Here is the final result from volume. The jar at the left was about 3/4 full of cashews, and that tiny amount is what they made. I knew it would reduce, but come on!!

So, I've already eaten all of it, and I will just have to try again!

Next up-- Make my own yogurt! (most likely from our raw milk source, the people at Golden Guernsey Dairy. Mmmmmm.... raw milk is good!)

oh, expect a longish rant on our fine state not allowing raw milk producers to advertise (see, I told you it wouldn't be all about flying!)

Cheers!

Scott