Peanut Butter

Here goes another easy peasy recipe. Seriously, did you know that in order to make peanut butter, the only ingredient you need is PEANUTS!!?? No chemicals, just peanuts. Yes!

The best thing about this recipe is there isn't a wrong way to make. So, get out your food processor and let's make some peanut butter.

Add shelled, unsalted peanuts to your food processor. You can use as many as you want. I used 4 cups of peanuts and ended up with over 3 cups of peanut butter. Sometimes I will shell my own peanuts, however, this time I used pre-shelled nuts.

Start up the processor. After a few minutes, your nuts will look something like the above picture. You may need to scrape down the side of the food processor a few times during this stage. Keep processing.

After about 5 minutes, your nuts will start to look like peanut butter. If you like it chunky, you can always stop at this stage. I like it creamy, so I'm going to keep going.

At around the 8 minute mark, your peanut butter will look like the above picture. Although it looks quite smooth, when I stop the food processor, the peanut butter holds it's shape. On the spoon (below) it stays quite firm as well.

I'm going to keep going. The more you process the peanuts, the more oils are released. It's really up to your personal preference regarding how long you process.

After 10 minutes of processing, my peanut butter is quite smooth and no longer holds it's shape.

On a spoon, it drips off quite freely. *Keep in mind, the peanut butter is loose right now because it is warm from the processing. When it cools down, it will harden a little bit.*

Now is the time you can get fancy with your peanut butter. You have many options. You can leave it the way it is or you can add some extra flavour to your butter depending on your preferences.

Here's a few ingredients I have successfully added to my peanut butter.

        - Salt

        - Cinnamon and honey

        - Maple syrup

        - Coconut oil and coconut flakes

        - Brown sugar

Get creative and make your own peanut butter concoction.

Above are 3 different types of peanut butter. On the left, I added cinnamon and honey in the middle, maple syrup and on the right, coconut oil and coconut flakes. All three mixtures are fantastic!

Place your peanut butter in jars and keep them in the fridge.

Colour Wheel Experiment

Make your own colour wheel using water in cups, food colouring and paper towels.

Simply fill 6 clear cups 1/4 of the way full of water.

Add food colouring to 3 of the cups (red, blue and yellow).

Make sure you use lots of food colouring in order to make vibrant colours.

Leave the other 3 cups with clear water.

Arrange the cups in a circle in order to resemble a colour wheel.

Place a piece of paper towel in between each cup.

Watch as the paper towel slowly sucks the water up and over the lip of the cup.

This process takes some time, so you may want to find something else to do for a while.

After a few hours, the paper towels have moved some of the primary colours into the cups that were clear in the beginning. The mixture of the colours creates the secondary colours (purple, orange and green)

Your kids will love watching the colours transform into new colours. My kids even requested keeping the colour wheel on our kitchen table as a centrepiece.

Spinach and Strawberry Salad with Poppy Seed Dressing

This is one of my no fail salads. It had been a hit at every BBQ or family gathering I've ever brought it to. I can't take credit for it though. My friend Lisa gave me this recipe a few years ago...thank you Lisa!

What You'll Need

Salad

3- 4 cups (approx) of baby spinach
2 cups sliced strawberries
1/2 - 1 cup chopped nuts (walnuts or pecans)

Dressing

1/4 cup of milk

1/4 cup of sugar

1/4 cup of mayo

2 Tbsp vinegar

2 Tbsp poppy seeds

Make It

Assemble the salad in a bowl and set aside. My measurements are really flexible for this part of the salad because it really all depends on your preference. I generally keep adding the fruit and nuts until I think it looks full enough.

Mix all the ingredients for the dressing and keep in a separate container until you are ready to eat the salad.

When it is time to eat, add the dressing to your salad, slightly toss it and serve.

* The best thing about this salad is how versatile it is. Depending on what's in the house, I switch up the fruits and nuts. Mandarin oranges, pomegranates and blueberries are all great substitutes for the strawberries. Mix it up and enjoy.