Peanutty Deliciousness and Jelly

Pin It I don't know if I have shared this with you all yet, but.....I am obsessed with peanut butter.  The love the stuff almost as much as I love baking and giraffes and that's saying something.  If you asked me what the best thing about going to college is, I would say being able to have my very own peanut butter jar. Seriously! So good! 

Here's a picture of me and my roommates one late night when we were supposed to be studying... Instead we found ourselves goofing around and eating peanut butter straight out of the jar.  MMMM. 

Notice that we each have a different kind of peanut butter.  Sorry guys, but your peanut butter is not up to my health standards...  Have you ever looked at the ingredient list on the back of your PB jar?  It's scary.

JIF

Roasted Peanuts and Sugar, Contains 2% Or Less Of: Molasses, Fully Hydrogenated Vegetable Oils (Rapeseed And Soybean), Mono- And Diglycerides, Salt.

SKIPPY

Roasted Peanuts, Sugar, Partially Hydrogenated Vegetable Oils (Rapeseed, Cottonseed And Soybean), Salt.

Look at all that Hydrogenated oil!  I don't know about you, but I dont want any of that junk in my body.  Gross.  Knowing that, some of you may have thought you were being healthier by choosing Reduced Fat Jif or Skippy...wrong.  The ingredient list on the reduced fat PB jar looks more like my chemistry homework if you ask me. "Magnesium Oxide, Zinc Oxide, Ferric Orthophosphate, Copper Sulfate, Niacinamide, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, And Folic Acid."  I do enough chemistry homework as it is; I don't need to be adding it to my diet.

REDUCED FAT JIF

Peanuts, Corn Syrup Solids, Soy Protein, Sugar, Contains 2% Or Less Of: Molasses, Salt, Fully Hydrogenated Vegetable Oils (Rapeseed, Cottonseed, and Soybean), Folic Acid, Niacinamide, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Alphatocopheryl, Acetate, Copper Sulfate, Ferric Orthophosphate, Magnesium, Oxide, And Zinc Oxide

REDUCED FAT SKIPPY

Roasted Peanuts, Corn Syrup Solids, Sugar, Soy Protein, Salt, Hydrogenated Vegetable Oils (Cottonseed, Soybean And Rapeseed), Mono And Diglycerides, Palm Oil, Magnesium Oxide, Zinc Oxide, Ferric Orthophosphate, Copper Sulfate, Niacinamide, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, And Folic Acid

Now as for the "Natural" Jif or Skippy...not so good either.  If peanut butter were to be truely all natural, the only thing on the ingredient list would be peanuts and maybe a little salt. There is no need for more sugar, palm oil, or even molasses.  American's get enough of that in their diet as it is.

 NO STIR "NATURAL" JIF

Made From Peanuts, Sugar, Palm Oil, Contains 2% Or Less Of: Salt, Molasses.

NO STIR "NATURAL" SKIPPY

Roasted Peanuts, Sugar, Palm Oil, And Salt

Here's the good stuff:

(Note: Smucker's is not the only truely natural brand of peanut butter there are many out there.  Smucker's is just the one I like the best.)

SMUCKER'S NATURAL

Peanuts, Contains 1% Or Less Of Salt.

I really enjoy Naturally More Peanut Butter too, although not completely pure and natural, the added ingredients are pretty healthy.  The only ingredient it could probably do without is the cane sugar...but hey "what cha gunna do?" :P

NATURALLY MORE

Roasted Peanuts, Wheat Germ, Flax Seed, Cane Sugar, Egg Whites, Honey, Flaxseed Oil.

Alright enough ranting about peanut butter and back to my baking adventure of the weekend.  My roommate invited a few girls over for a taco dinner, so I decided to bake the dessert.  PBJ Bars!  America's favorite sandwich made into dessert.  Yum.  After doing a little recipe searching, combining, recreating, and improvising, I came up with nutritious-n-delicious PBJ bars.

P.S. Even my pickiest of picky friend liked these...and let me tell you thats saying something.  These are yummy!

PBJ Bars

Ingredients

1 can Chickpeas

1/4 cup Honey

3 tbsp Brown sugar

2 tsp Vanilla

1 Egg

1/4 cup Dry roasted peanuts (I'm going to omit these the next time I made them)

1/4 cup Natural Peanut butter

1/2 tsp Baking soda

1/2 tsp Baking powder

Sprinkle of Salt

1/4 cup Plum jam

 Directions

1. Preheat oven 350 F.

2. Puree the chickpeas with the honey.  You may need to add a little water to get it to blend in your food processor or blender.

3. In another bowl mix together the brown sugar, vanilla, and egg. 

4. Add the chickpeas to the bowl and blend well. 

5. Stir in the peanut butter, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.

6. Pour into a greased 8x8 square baking dish. 

7. Drop blobs of jam on top of the batter and swirl with a knife.

8.  Bake for 25-30 minutes until slightly golden and a knife comes out clean when poked in the middle.

Makes 16 bars. 

Nutrition Facts

Calories: 99

Total Fat: 3.5 g

     Sat. Fat: 0.5 g

     Poly. Fat: 0.7 g

     Mono. Fat: 1.1 g

Cholesterol: 10 mg

Sodium: 152.3 mg

Potassium: 65.6 mg

Total Carbs: 14.8 g

     DIetary Fiber: 1.7 g

     Sugars: 9.7 g

Protein: 2.9 g

Vitamin A: 0.4%

Vitamin C: 0%

Calcium: 2.1%

Iron: 2.5%