Peanut, Peanut Butter (JELLY!)

Mayumi learned this song in primary and sings it from time to time, getting REALLY excited to loudly whisper that last part--'jelly!' She finds it very silly and laughs great peals of Yumi laughter.

Hopefully you will understand, then, how challenging it was for everyone in this house to go without peanut butter the last two weeks. Mayumi loves it, Nate could eat it by the jar, and I just find it convenient. Sadly, we finished our only jar the second day of the month--and I was committed to not buy anything from the grocery store we could make ourselves or buy locally.

Peanuts ARE grown in Virginia, but it took me some time to find a seller this far north in the state. After a few misses, I finally found someone--the local Lions Club! They had a booth at a farmers' market in the next town over and I pounced on them. On their peanuts, anyway, and pumped them for information regarding peanut butter production. Fortunately one of their number knew what to do and imparted some of his secret methods to me. You, too, can learn how to make peanut butter. Just watch:

Many long minutes later (I was worried it would blow out the motor), it DID turn into PB, and on top of some homemade bread and with some of our local honey--mmm mmm mmm.

Pizza time again. Here we have 100% whole wheat crust (serviceable, but nothing to write home about), Fertile Plains Farm Canadian Bacon (from our local Farmers' Market), Mozzarella from the Falls Church Farmers' Market, homemade sauce (can you believe that it took 12 Roma tomatoes to make sauce for one pizza) flavored with herbs from our own garden. Yum!

And how's this for gorgeous? Mayumi would be satisfied if all she ever had to eat were berries--particularly BLUE berries.

Blue and purple just aren't colors you see enough of in edible foods. We'll be trying some more of those great colors this week as I try to cook EGGPLANT. Oh, I've tried to cook eggplant before but I can't say that I've enjoyed it (I made some moussaka earlier this year but just didn't love it). As you can, there is some eggplant in my crisper here, along with some peppers, tomatoes, and garlic. On a shelve above you would find another vegetable I have ZERO experience cooking: okra. We'll see how it goes. Why okra? Well, that is what they are selling right now--that is what is in season.

Equally as colorful but not evident from the photo are the cooked carrots and green beans to the left. I've always made my own baby food, but this year it is strictly from veggies/fruit on offer from the farmers' markets. Thus--no sweet potato (right now) and no apple sauce (I just made some peach sauce--I'll include the photo next time). These veggies pictured were just boiled, the drained, and then were processed into (yum) puree. Hey--Emi loves it.