Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Peanut Butter

Peanut butter may seem like a strange thing to blog about, but here I am. My oldest child went to public school for Kindergarten and 1st grade. Plus he was in preschool for nearly 3 years before that. When I started teaching him for 2nd grade, there were many things he already knew. But I am also still, 2 years later, discovering things he should have learned but didn't. That is not the point of my story. The point is, that with my little one, he has never gone to any school other than here at home. As he has gone through preschool and now Kindergarten/1st grade it is like my first time teaching all over again. He has to learn things that I never thought about teaching, because his brother already knew them. Where am I going with this story? Well, the instructions in the first grade mathbook today were to make peanut butter. Huh? What does peanut butter have to do with math? Well, it has to do with measuring and following a recipe. The blessing of homeschooling is that they get to do a project like this at all. Schools would not be able to do anything of the sort due to peanut allergies. So, we head off to the produce store to buy peanuts. Then, we head home to start shelling peanuts. I am not really much of a nut person, so I don't know about all the different types of peanuts. Apparently the ones I bought, are not the best tasting ones. The boys love eating peanuts, but tasted these and spit them back out. But we trucked on anyway. The second step called for 1 tsp of vegetable oil. I figured why not make it healthier and use EVOO. I don't know if that affected the flavor or not, but it was the worst peanut butter I have ever tasted. Here's my question. Does anyone know what kind of peanut I should use to make peanut butter? Also, I've heard almond butter is really good. Does anyone have a recipe for that?

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