
When I was a boy, my Uncle Walter grew peanuts. One afternoon when I went to visit him, I found him working furiously at the meat grinder clamped to his kitchen cabinet, his hand churning around and around like a windmill. Peanuts and peanut shells were everywhere. I asked what he was doing, and he told me he was experimenting making peanut butter. “The first time I tried it,” he said, “I just got ground up peanuts. It was a dry, crumbly mess. But I’ve learned that if I keep putting them through the grinder over and over, eventually they get oily.” He spread some of the wet, chunky stuff onto a cracker and gave it to me. It was the best peanut butter I’ve ever had — before or since.
Inspired by that (and because I have gluten-free souls in my family), my granddaughter Ava and I did an experiment of our own. We ended up with three-ingredient gluten-free peanut butter cookies. They’d be good with a drizzle of glaze, but I like them just plain and rustic and natural.
The ingredients:
- One 12-ounnce can of honey-roasted peanuts
- Two eggs
- One and a half teaspoons of vanilla
1. Empty the can of honey-roasted peanuts into a blender and blend until they yield their oil and form a moist ball.
2. Add two eggs
3. Add vanilla
Scoop them into a dozen balls, flatten them a little, and bake at 350 for about about 12 minutes. Glaze if you like.