Long-term food storage means it sits on your shelf for “just in case”, it’s not something you actually use, right? Yes, and no. While I don’t ever want to deplete my stores when “regular” food is available, I don’t want to be so unfamiliar with an item I won’t know how to use it should that time ever come. With that in mind, let’s talk peanut butter.
Our regular peanut butter is a natural one with peanuts being the only ingredient. I cannot tell you what sort of shelf life it has, because we use it so quickly I have never had any on my shelves longer than a couple of months. We use peanut butter for more than just a good PB&J. I have various recipes for baked goods using peanut butter — cookies, pancakes, muffins, etc. I also like to occasionally add it to a smoothie (especially with a frozen banana and bit of chocolate syrup-yum!)
We have Peanut Butter Powder in our LTFS (long term food storage). The sole ingredient is peanuts. It is dehydrated and I have added an appropriate amount of water and made sandwiches with it (much easier than stirring the oil into a new jar of the “real stuff”). This is all good to know, but what I love (besides the short ingredient list) is how easy it is to use in recipes. We get our Peanut Butter Powder from Emergency Essentials. There are some recipes on the site, but most of them say to reconstitute the powder and then proceed with the recipe. I want you to know, it can be easier than that!
One of my favorite muffin recipes is an infinitely adaptable one. The original is from my friend Brenda at Garden of Learning. The way I make this recipe most often is this:
2 C whole wheat flour
2 C regular rolled oats
1 C peanut butter powder (no reconstituting here; can sub. same amount of regular)
2 T baking powder
1 t baking soda (good to add when using honey in baked goods)
1 t salt
2 C yogurt (or combination yogurt + milk)
2 slightly beaten eggs
1/4 C honey (by using a liquid sweetener and adding bananas the extra moisture needed for the PB powder is “built in”)
2 medium bananas mashed
1/4 C coconut oil
*Optional – Soak oats and/or flour in a glass bowl with the yogurt. I usually do this for 30 minutes. You can let it soak as long as overnight (or not at all). Treat this mixture as wet ingredients.
Preheat oven to 425º Stir together dry ingredients in a large bowl. In a separate bowl combine wet ingredients. Gently stir wet ingredients into dry ingredients. Stir only to combine, do not overmix. Fill greased muffin tins 3/4 full. Bake for 15 minutes or until done.
So easy. So yummy. So good for you with the whole wheat flour, oats, honey and yogurt. So great to have on hand in the freezer for hungry children. *grin*
This yields 18-24 muffins for us. I think the difference comes from how long I let it soak. I also make these without soaking – quicker and just as good.
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. It is my hope you will use my link should you decide to make a purchase from Emergency Essentials. I will receive a small percentage of the sale at no additional cost to you. Thank you!