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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (July 18, 2015)
Page 4C East Oregonian EAT, DRINK & EXPLORE Saturday, July 18, 2015 DIY: Make healthier, cheaper peanut butter By SARA MOULTON Associated Press For many parents, back to school time means back to packing lunch for the kids. And that means it’s time to revisit that old lunchbox mainstay, the peanut butter sandwich. The star ingredient tends to come one of two ways — heavily processed or ultra-natural. The more processed peanut butters generally are pumped up with AP Photo/Matthew Mead This photo shows homemade nut butters from (from bottom clockwise) peanut butter, cashew butter and almond butter. added fats (as if peanuts don’t have enough!), sugar and salt. Not a happy choice. Meanwhile, natural peanut butters may shed the added ingredients, but they often make up for it with gains in price. Ouch! I’ve decided there is a better way. Homemade! Do-it-yourself peanut butter is not only healthier (you control what goes in it), it’s also way cheaper. And it’s a snap to make. You start with the recipe’s only required ingredient: peanuts, raw or toasted. I prefer using toasted peanuts. You can buy them toasted or get raw and toast them at home in the oven. Either way, you just pour the toasted peanuts into a processor or sturdy blender and let it rip until they’re ground. The grinding involves two stages. First, the peanuts turn into D¿QHSRZGHU,I\RXNHHSJRLQJ they then turn into a smooth paste. Keep in mind that food processors and blenders tend to overheat if they’re forced to run for a long period. That’s why I prepare peanut butter in small batches, grinding only 1 1/2 cups of nuts at a time. I also like to add 1 tablespoon of a neutral oil. My preference LVJUDSHVHHGEXWVXQÀRZHURU VDIÀRZHUDOVRZRUN7KHRLOPDNHV it easier to grind the nuts, which keeps both the machine and the nut butter from becoming too hot. If you like your peanut butter chunky, start this recipe by pulsing about 1/3 cup of additional nuts in the processor. Once they’re nicely chopped, dump them out of the processor and set them aside. When the rest of the nuts have been ground to a paste, transfer to a bowl and stir in the chopped nuts. Flavorings? You might add WHDVSRRQRI¿QHVDOWLQWKH beginning. Other options are vanilla extract or paste, honey, cinnamon or whatever suits your fancy. Just hold off on adding these AP Photo/Matthew Mead This photo shows how to make homemade peanut butter HOMEMADE NUT BUTTERS Toasted peanuts, almonds and cashews taste best. If you buy them raw, they are easy to toast at home. Spread the nuts on a rimmed baking sheet lined with kitchen parchment and bake on the oven’s middle shelf at 350 F for 12 to 15 minutes, or until lightly browned and fragrant. For a lighter, smoother almond butter, look for blanched almonds, which lack the skin. 6WDUWWR¿QLVK10 minutes Makes about 1 cup • 1 1/2 to 1 3/4 cups raw or toasted peanuts or cashews • 1 tablespoon neutral vegetable oil, preferably grapeseed WHDVSRRQ¿QHVDOWRSWLRQDO In a food processor, combine the nuts, oil and salt, if using. Process until very smooth, scraping down the sides several times, 1 to 4 minutes. Transfer to a glass jar with a lid and chill until ready to use. The nut butters will keep for up to 3 months in the refrigerator. Nutrition information per serving (based on 8 servings) using peanuts: 180 calories; 140 calories from fat (78 percent of total calories); 15 g fat (2.5 g saturated; 0 g trans fats); 0 mg cholesterol; 60 PJVRGLXPJFDUERK\GUDWHJ¿EHUJVXJDUJSURWHLQ Nutrition information per serving (based on 8 servings) using cashews: 160 calories; 120 calories from fat (75 percent of total calories); 14 g fat (2.5 g saturated; 0 g trans fats); 0 mg cholesterol; 65 mg sodium; 8 g carbohydrate; 1 g ¿ber; 1 g sugar; 4 g protein. XQWLO\RX¶UHRWKHUZLVH¿QLVKHG processing. Once you have the consistency you want, then mix in DQ\ÀDYRULQJV The beauty of this recipe? You don’t have to limit yourself to peanuts. Almonds and cashews work great, too. And whichever nut you use, your homemade nut butter will keep in a sealed jar in the refrigerator for up to three months. But I’m pretty sure it’ll be eaten well before then. ——— Sara Moulton was executive chef at Gourmet magazine for nearly 25 years, and spent a decade hosting several Food Network shows. She currently stars in public television’s “Sara’s Weeknight Meals” and has written three cookbooks, including “Sara Moulton’s Everyday Family Dinners.” Tapping into anti-social behavior S search for “badges.” Badges are ince the dawn of leisure time earned by a user when they reach communities surrounding certain check-in benchmarks and a particular interest have range from the innocuous to those sought to exchange information celebrating excess. The “Drinking about their passions with fellow enthusiasts in order to deepen their Your Paycheck” badge is earned ZKHQDXVHUFRQVXPHV¿YHEHHUV knowledge and appreciation of on a Friday. (It would be safe to whatever it is they hold dear. In assume that they are consumed addition to food, the arts, sports, after the workday in one history, etc., this certainly sitting.) The “Top Of The holds true for our vices. Morning” badge is earned Beer enthusiasts desire, just as much as cigar E\KDYLQJ¿YHEHHUVEHIRUH D¿FLRQDGRVDQGFRUNGRUNV noon. The “Six Pack” (read: wine lovers), to trade badge is earned by drink six notes with each other. of the same beers in a row. Launched in October All of this seems rather 2010, Untappd is a reminiscent of the “Skinner J.D. “web-based application Box” experiments. In a Kindle Skinner Box, a test subject, that enables beer drinkers Comment to share beers, beer- usually a lab rat, is trained drinking establishments to pull a lever in response and feedback about beers with to a certain stimuli. Pulling that friends and other beer-drinking lever delivers a reward, which in enthusiasts.” Untappd users keep a turn delivers dopamine to the brain. log of when, where and what beers A subject is gradually conditioned they consume by “checking-in.” to repeat the reward-delivering Those check-ins can viewed by behavior. other users who can potentially In addition to the addictive garner information about a brew elements that Untappd presents, they are unfamiliar with. It’s a 21st the nature of it being a social century aide to an age-old process media program introduces the (to call it a solution is a bit much, phenomenon “Fear of Missing considering there never was a Out” or its acronym, “FoMO.” problem to begin with). Just like a Facebook user wants Although Untappd provides a to consistently be kept in the loop means of comparing notes between about what their friends are up to beer connoisseurs, the business and constantly checks their feed model of the app is to provide for updates, fear of missing out data about those beer lovers to on what one’s peers are drinking interested parties (marketers, draws a user to compulsively brewers, bars, retailers, etc.), just engage with Untappd. Even worse as Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/etc. is the status anxiety an Untappd serve the dual purpose of providing user is subjected to when faced a platform for relationship-building with the possibility of their fellow between users while at the same Untappd friends surpassing their time selling data concerning those feats of beer consumption. users and products. However, The overall message sent by there are unintended consequences Untapped is that “he who drinks of Untappd just as there are the most beers wins,” which feels unintended consequences from more like the ethos of a University other ubiquitous social media of Oregon frat binge drinking party sites. In its pursuit to produce than the facilitation of intelligent marketable data Untappd creates discussion about beer. Although an addictive environment in order it is a recent phenomenon in to compel users to keep producing civilization’s history, social media data (read: keep drinking). addiction is a real thing and Just as one would compulsively has the potential to drive social spend an inordinate amount of time media users towards anti-social strategically making posts to their behavior — how ironic. Alcohol social media accounts in order to addiction is a real thing that we reap the rewards system of positive are all too aware of. Each is a responses from fellow users draped persistent problem, but the ability in trademarked terms (“Likes”, of the former to enable the latter is “Favs”, and “Karma”), an Untappd doubly concerning. user can be compelled to equally Ŷ be seeking a “cheers” for their James Dean Kindle is a check-ins. singer-songwriter and musician Untappd also includes and Pendleton resident. You can competitive gaming elements contact him at jamesdeankindle@ into its platform by adding the gmail.com In this June 1 photo, Yasur volcano erupts on Tanna Island in Vanuatu. AP Photo/Nick Perry Vanuatu volcano puts on a glittering, primal show before falling asleep. “When the boys came back home with their mother, they saw TANNA ISLAND, Vanuatu — the pig and they got angry,” he It’s constantly hissing, fussing and said. “They got angry and they belching, but every half hour or so didn’t realize that it was their Yasur volcano sends up a tremen- father. They thought it was a pig. dous spurt of lava and a boom so And they killed the pig with a stick. loud it is deafening on the crater And the pig exploded.” He said the four distinct craters rim and can be heard for miles. At dusk, the explosions begin to in the volcano represent the four UHVHPEOH ¿UHZRUNV WKH ODYD JOLW- sons. From the Tanna airport, the tering as it falls from the sky. At just 1,184 feet elevation, the main transport across the island’s YROFDQRRQWKH3DFL¿FDUFKLSHODJR rugged dirt roads is by truck. To of Vanuatu is particularly acces- enter the volcano grounds, there is sible, and spectacularly active. a 3,350 vatu ($31) fee. From the base, it’s about a Some have dubbed it the world’s friendliest volcano, although its 90-minute hike to the crater rim. primal ferocity and occasionally There’s also an access road, and, for dangerous eruptions of lava and a fee, local drivers will take tourists gas would seem to defy that up, leaving just a 15-minute walk across a rugged, barren moonscape description. Getting there is an adventure. to the rim. There’s a lonely postal Yasur is on Vanuatu’s southern box near the top marked the Tanna island, which doesn’t have “Volcano Post” where tourists can paved roads and where many of mail postcards. Authorities periodically close its 30,000 people continue to live as the islanders have for centuries, Yasur when the eruptions get in simple thatch huts with pigs and too violent and it becomes too dangerous to stand near the crater chickens running freely. Legend has it that the volcano rim. Yoram Teitler, a geologist who is a god. Kelson Hosea, who owns the rustic Jungle Oasis bungalows was recently a research fellow near the base of Yasur, said the at the University of Western story goes that Yasur returned Australia, said the volcano has been KRPHRQHGD\WR¿QGKLVWZRZLYHV active for perhaps 2,000 years. It is and four sons still at the beach, and constantly bubbling, with larger in anger turned himself into a pig, eruptions coming once or twice an By NICK PERRY Associated Press hour. Observers can stand about IHHWIURPWKHFUDWHUÀRRU “It’s quite rare to get such a kind of activity in a volcano,” he said. “There are just a few examples in the world, and it’s requiring WKH FRPELQDWLRQ RI YHU\ VSHFL¿F conditions. You need to have a VSHFL¿F YLVFRVLW\ RI WKH ODYD D VSHFL¿F DPRXQW RI JDVHV ZLWKLQ the magma. And as well, a proper plumbing system to trigger such regular explosions.” Teitler said that once people arrive on the rim, it’s important to avoid the poisonous sulfurous gases coming from the craters and some side vents by taking a posi- tion upwind of them. He said that if the lava does explode beyond the rim, rather than running blindly away it’s better to watch where the hunks are falling so you can avoid them. Vanuatu President Baldwin Lonsdale said the volcano has become a popular tourist attraction and a place where locals are able to make some money. “But people have to be very careful when they walk up the volcano,” he said. “Because it’s very dangerous there.” For those willing to brave the volcano at night, they can see a display that is both spectacular and elemental, one that creates new terrain and connects to the very origins of the planet.
