If you’re looking for a peanut butter cheesecake recipe, I’ve found that this one works quite well:

Oreo® Peanut Butter Cheesecake

Ingredients

• 1 pkg. (15 oz.) Oreo Double Delight Peanut Butter ’n Chocolate Creme Chocolate Sandwich Cookies, divided
• 3 Tbsp. butter or margarine, melted
• 3 pkg. (8 oz. each) Philadelphia Cream Cheese, softened
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 container (16 oz.) Sour Cream
• 1 cup creamy peanut butter
• 3 eggs

Preparation

1. Finely crush 16 of the cookies. Coarsely chop remaining 14 cookies; set aside.
2. Mix finely crushed cookies and butter. Press firmly onto bottom of 9-inch springform pan; set aside.
3. Beat cream cheese and sugar in large bowl with electric mixer at medium speed until well blended. Add sour cream and peanut butter; mix well. Add eggs, 1 at a time, mixing on low speed after each addition just until blended. Gently stir in chopped cookies. Pour over crust.
4. Bake at 350°F for 50 to 60 minutes or until center is almost set. Run knife or metal spatula around side of pan to loosen cake; cool before removing side of pan. Refrigerate 4 hours or overnight. Store leftover cheesecake in refrigerator.

I wouldn’t recommend attempting a low-fat cheesecake, but the recipe can be otherwise made slightly more healthy with few modifications. You could switch from “regular” peanut butter to natural peanut butter, and that eliminates much of the trans fat (except for those intrinsic to the Oreos).

And, you can swap out Splenda for the sugar — with this modification, each 1/12 slice has only 28g carbs, which isn’t bad considering that it’s cake. I’ve tried both approaches (substituting both the peanut butter and the sugar), and the cake still turned out well.

Update 2/5: If you’re going to try making a cheesecake, you may also find these cheesecake tips helpful. Among them, they recommend serving the cheesecake at room temperature, which would take about 30 mins out of the fridge (I didn’t know about that one).

I’ve recently found an interest in both oatmeal and peanut butter. Can anyone recommend any recipes that use both ingredients?

I’m thinking that maybe something along the lines of peanut-butter oatmeal bars could be quite tasty :).

I bought some Natural Peanut Butter the other day at Target. I needed some more peanut butter anyway, and I didn’t want the trans fat associated with regular peanut butter.

I hadn’t had natural peanut butter in years, probably not within the past ten years or so. As a kid, I didn’t like it much, as I preferred the sweetness of regular peanut butter. Trying it again now, it was quite tasty. It tasted as if it was created through crushing peanuts and putting the peanut-carnage right in a jar.

The only downfall, it seems, is that it was quite sticky — on a slice of bread it would seem to gum-up my mouth more so that regular peanut butter would tend to. I’m curious as to what factor is contributing to the stickiness.

I know it’s not for a lack of fat, as the Natural Peanut Butter has 16g (but of the “good fat”). And, I don’t think that the lower sugar-content would be a factor, as I wouldn’t think that sugar would contribute to stickiness one way or another.

Any ideas on techniques as to what could reduce the stickiness of natural peanut butter? I was thinking of adding (no-calorie) Splenda to my next peanut butter sandwich, so as to more closely resemble the sweetness that I’m used to, but is there anything that I could add that might unstickify the sandwich?

I was feeling a little peckish after breakfast this morning, so I was looking around the kitchen for a little snack. There’s not much around these days, as I’ve stopped buying cookies and Newtons for the time being.

I still hand plenty of Peeps — resulting from a 90%-off sale at Target after Easter — so I turned my attention to those. I was about to eat one raw, but then I recalled that I may as well nuke ’em. From there, my mind went into overdrive — “What if I could add a topping to nuked Peep to magnify its goodness?”. And, from there, I turned to peanut butter.

I just opened up the jar — reduced-fat, no less — and dunked the helpless Peep in there. I made sure that his little body was covered in peanuttyness. From there, I just placed him on a saucer and nuked him for 12 seconds on high.

Man, you thought nuked Peeps were good? This was spectacular. It was like taking the Peepiness to a whole new level. It was just fabulously delicous. Mmm, I’m going to have to exercise restraint to stop myself from eating too many of these ;).

I was talking with my brother the other day about peanut butter and banana sandwiches. And, after reading about them, he had the urge to have one again.

Specifically, my brother had a craving for what’s apparently known as a “Velvet Elvis”, which is a peanut-butter-and-banana sandwich, except that it’s grilled as if like a grilled-cheese sandwich (with each slice buttered on the outside).

So, he set out to buy the necessary ingredients. And, normally, this wouldn’t be a problem, except that he’s interning in Germany for the summer. So, while the bread and bananas were easy enough to find, he just couldn’t find any peanut-butter at his local grocery store.

However, like any good European food-store, his local store had plenty of Nutella. Now, in case you’ve been living under a rock, Nutella is a chocolate-flavored spread made with hazelnuts. It’s very much delicious, but can hard to find in this country (at least at reasonable prices). So, at any rate, he picked up some Nutella as a substitute for the peanut butter.

He assembled and grilled the sandwich: bread + bananas + Nutella. He tells me that, though it was definitely tasty, it still didn’t live up to the full potential of a genuine Velvet Elvis. Nonetheless, he named this new sandwich as a “European Elvis” (a good name, I think). And, though I'm still a big fan of ordinary peanut butter and banana sandwiches, I look forward to consuming a European Elvis sometime.

ObJulie: Yes, I'm aware that Central Market probably has Nutella for sale ;).

In a comment to yesterday’s entry on peanut butter and banana sandwiches, Adrian asks:

The important details! Did you get creamy or crunchy?

Also how does the low fat peanut butter compare to the regular in taste, texture, etc?

As it turns out, I got the creamy variety of Skippy’s Reduced Fat peanut butter (though crunchy is also available). Actually, it’s labeled as “Peanut Spread”, so I'm guessing that it doesn’t meet some legal definition of “peanut butter”. In smaller print, it also says “60% peanuts”. Ordinarily, I’d wonder what the remaining 40% was, but Skippy’s FAQ answers that:

Skippy Reduced Fat peanut butter spread uses maltodextrin (a type of corn starch) to replace some of the fat in peanuts. It also contains soy protein, and mineral supplements in addition to the standard peanut butter ingredients. For additional information on ingredients in Skippy products visit our Nutritional Facts section.

Still this is only a “reduced fat” product, not a low-fat one. After all, a serving of this “reduced fat” peanut butter still has almost as much fat as a Snickers bar (12g vs 14g, respectively). Of course, the peanut butter also has about 100 fewer calories than the Snickers bar (190 vs 280, respectively).

Ok, on to the taste and texture, the important parts. It spreads just like normal peanut butter, and its texture is identical (as far as I can tell). And, the taste is good, too. Of course, I only ate some in the context of a peanut butter and banana sandwich (so maybe I wasn’t getting the full-on peanut effect), but I definitely enjoyed it. That, and I'm not exactly a peanut butter connoisseur, as I probably haven't had real peanut butter in about 5 or 6 years (and, no, Resse’s products don’t count as real peanut butter).

But, all in all, I was very satisfied. And, I’d buy it again. The key here, I think, is that this is only a “reduced fat” product, as opposed to an actual “low fat” product. Due to government food-labeling laws, “low fat” has specific legal meaning (that is, the food must actually be low in fat). But, with “reduced fat”, that merely means that the reduced-fat version has less fat than the full-fat version. So, as is usually the case, reduced-fat foods are healthier, while still tasting good.

Looking over the rest of Skippy’s FAQ, I saw this entry on giving peanut butter to children and infants:

[...] Young children, especially 2 to 3-year olds, can be at risk of choking on foods. When serving peanut butter to young children spread it thinly. For easier eating, peanut butter can also be thinned by mixing with mashed banana, apple sauce or yogurt.

Of course, I have no infants to deal with, but that excerpt did give me an idea that I could use those very techniques to thin my own peanut butter. So, perhaps by adding yogurt to my already reduced-fat peanut butter, I might be able to achieve truly low-fat peanut butter. Perhaps I’ll try a peanut-butter-yogurt-banana sandwich sometime.

I went to take my car for an oil change this afternoon, since my site was down for a little while anyway. On the way back, I figured I could pick up some peanut butter, for use in peanut butter and banana sandwiches.

Jason mentioned the other day that he preferred the peanut butter from Whole Foods. On the other hand, I would have preferred some low-fat peanut butter (16g fat is a lot to swallow, so to speak). And, I figured that Whole Foods probably would just have regular peanut butter :-/.

So, my plan was to get the best of both worlds by buying some low-fat peanut butter and some Whole Foods peanut butter. I stopped by Target and found some reduced fat peanut butter — actually they had several reduced-fat brands, which surprised me: Jif ($1.99), Skippy ($1.89), and Peter Pan ($1.79). They were all the same weight (18 oz) and all fairly close in price. So, in the end, I ended up choosing Skippy just because it had a better form-factor: its container was most cylindrical, which I figured would prevent peanut butter getting lost in crevices.

After Target, I drove further down Skillman to get some Whole Foods peanut butter for Jason. Unfortunately, though, when I got there, I discovered that the Whole Foods on Skillman had apparently closed on June 9th (so says the sign on the front). So, I would have bought some Whole Foods peanut butter, but that location had closed (sorry, Jason!).

As far as natural peanut butters (aka Whole Foods style), I actually saw some at the Target, of all places. Apparently, in addition to their Jif brand, the Smucker’s corporation also has a line of Natural Peanut Butter under their Smucker’s brand. It was available in both “creamy” and “crunchy” — and it had the characteristic oil-floating-on-top, so it appeared to be authentic. In any case, I’ll stick with my reduced-fat peanut butter, so I’ll leave the natural peanut butter choices up to Jason.

Ok, on to the sandwich itself. I got home, and all this thinking about peanut butter really had me jonesing for a peanut butter and banana sandwich.

• Peanut butter: check
• Bread: check
• Bananas: a little green, but do-able

So, I took out two slices of wheat bread and placed them on the plate. Then, I peanut-buttered one side of the bread (being a newbie at this sandwich-type, I wasn’t sure whether I should have peanut-buttered both sides). I then sliced the banana lengthwise. And, to be honest, I felt sorry for the banana for a split-second — I guess I just wasn’t used to seeing banana-guts from a lengthwise-perspective.

I closed the sandwich and elected not to cut it in half. I sat down at the couch futon and took a bite: tasty! In some ways, I was so psyched-up about this sandwich, that the first bite was every-so-slightly underwhelming. But, once I got in the sandwich-groove, I was digging it. Mmm.

In retrospect, I may try peanut-buttering both sides of the bread next time, as the peanut-butter-to-banana ratio seemed just a touch low. In any case, it was a good sandwich; I look forward to eating them more often.

Jason was musing about a peanut butter and bannana sandwich that he had the other day. He seemed to quite enjoy it, so I asked him about it:

Alex: Seriously, are they any good? I’ve never tried peanut butter and banana together, so I have no idea :-/. Neither product is particularly sweet, though I imagine the slight saltiness of the peanut butter might act as a sort of “seasoning” to the banana?

Jason: Well… I like it. It’s probably just something you have to try and see if you like it yourself. Actually it’s pretty similar to the old stand-by of peanut butter and jelly, except the jelly part is a bit firmer and not quite as sweet ;-)

Alex: So, how much peanut butter do I apply? Just enough to cover the bread, or do I slather it on?

Jason: Um... somewhere in between, I guess :-/ …probably another “personal preference” thing.

Alex: And, about 1/4“ slices for the banana, eh?

Jason: I’ve found that slicing the banana once lengthwise, and then each of those pieces in half, gives you four pieces that fit nicely on a slice of bread, and is easier than cutting it into many coin-shaped slices. Not sure if that makes sense... wish I could do banana-slicing diagrams in ASCII.

Alex: I’m not used to typing “banana”, and you wouldn’t believe how many times I ran into the banana problem during this e-mail <g>.

So, that covers the exposition. Fast forward to the present: I’m jonesing for a peanut-butter-and-banana sandwich. And, I’m stoked because I see that there’s still a banana left on the countertop. So, I trod downstairs and open the fridge — but, there’ no peanut butter! Feh. My hopes are dashed. (Well, ok, there was a smidgen of peanut butter left, but still not enough to make a sandwich)

So, if I go to Kroger tomorrow or within the next few days, maybe I’ll buy some more peanut butter. I'll have to ask Jason which kind he prefers. Really, I haven’t had peanut butter since I was a kid, primarily because of its high fat content (16g/serving, yikes!). However, most of that (13g) is actually unsaturated fat (the less-bad fat) and peanut butter apparently has no trans fatty acids either (the hella-bad fat). So, maybe I’ll have to give peanut butter another chance.

Thinking it over, I recall Jason saying that I could add condiment x to make the peanut-butter-and-banana sandwich even better. Now, what was it? Salt? Sugar? Cinnamon, or something? Maybe I just have peanut butter on the brain, but I just can’t think of it at the moment. Hmm.

Update: In the comments, Jason mentions that condiment x == honey. Aha.