NUTS TO YOU!

Nut butters can find a place in many dishes, which is why our Pantry Raid columnists can’t get enough of them.

These healthy nut butters are ready to add exotic flavors to your dishes.

We hope you’re not too busy planning for the holidays because your pantry is about to get busy with nut butters. Pedestrian as peanut butter may sound, learn how to use it right and you won’t be lacking in the dinner department for a long time. And why stop with peanut butter? Sure, PB&J’s are awesome, but they lack the eyes-rolling-back-in-your-head factor that the mysterious flavors of Mexico, Africa and Thailand throw our way with a variety of nut butters. (And who doesn’t want that kind of thrill at dinner time?)  Escort these cuisines into your dinner plans by way of our little nut buddies and your PB&J will be pushed aside to make way for sauces, soups, stews and even moles.

Interest piqued by the promise of dinner-time thrills? Well what if we were to tell you that nuts are also naturally cholesterol free? Huh? That’s pretty exciting! And they’re packed with B vitamins, folic acid and magnesium — you need that stuff for calcium and vitamin D absorption as well as energy production. Low magnesium equals low energy, increased blood pressure and heart disease. And folks, that’s the opposite of exciting.

And while you may worry about the fat content of nuts and nut butters, you can feel great about sticking your finger in that jar of almond butter knowing that we’re talking good fats here; unsaturated fats that actually help our hearts by lowering bad cholesterol and raising the good stuff. In fact, several studies have found that eating just five little one-ounce servings a week may reduce the risk of Type 2 diabetes by a third!

One of our favorite snacks is a sliced Honeycrisp apple with a smear of almond or cashew butter on each bite. It’s portable, satisfying, healthy and a much better snacking decision than say a bag of cheesy puffs or an entire jar of cold pasta sauce (ahem, Diana).

Unexpectedly delicious, creamy and freaky good for you! Seriously? You can see why our pantries are all in a tizzy over this whole nuts-in-a-jar thing. And there’s so many options to choose from when you’re looking to incorporate nut butters into your own pantry parties. While there’s always our pal peanut butter (although the peanut is actually a legume and not a nut, but let’s not get distracted), there’s also almond, cashew, macadamia, hazelnut, sesame seed and even walnut butter to consider. Mix things up …  the recipes we’re sharing with you here are just a starting point; a springboard to send you diving headfirst into the pool of creamy goodness that awaits.

We’re not going to lie, cashew butter is one of the most decadent and satisfying things that ever our spoons dipped into. It’s a handy nut butter to have for cookies or to thicken soups, but we’re pretty nuts for it as a sauce. Drizzle it over your rice & vegetables, drown your tofu, pork and chicken in it; this sauce is as good as any peanut sauce around.

2  cups cashew butter
3  cups water or almond milk
2  tablespoons ginger root, grated
1  tablespoon tamari
1  large garlic clove, smashed and minced
1/2 teaspoon salt

1. In a blender or food processor, purée all ingredients until very smooth. (An immersion blender is also top notch for this step because you can blend it in the saucepan.)
2. Pour purée into a large saucepan and heat gently, stirring often until hot.
3. Best served with chopped scallions mixed in, and poured over pretty much anything — vegetables, tofu, chicken, pork or even just a bowl of rice.

Crazy Delicious Almond Tofu and Quinoa
This looks and tastes like someone far more culinarily gifted than us made it, which is why we love it so much.  It has become a “dish most frequently eaten” in both of our kitchens because the ingredients are typically already in our pantries and refrigerators. You can change up the vegetables or grain to what you have on hand and even use a different nut butter.
Serves 4

1 cup quinoa, rinsed well and drained
1 package of firm tofu, cubed
2 zucchini, diced
1 red bell pepper, diced
3/4 cup of frozen peas
2 tablespoons almond butter
3 tablespoons tamari sauce
2 tablespoons water
1 teaspoon Sriracha or hot sauce (more if you like it spicy)
1/2 tablespoon rice vinegar

1. Put rinsed quinoa in a saucepan with 1 1/2 cups of water. Bring to a boil, cover, turn off heat and steam for 20 minutes. Fluff with a fork when ready to serve.
2. Meanwhile, heat a large sauté pan over medium-high heat and add tofu. Sear on each side until golden then add diced veggies and let them cook for about 5-10 minutes.
3. While the veggies are cooking, add all of the sauce ingredients into a blender or food processor and whir until smooth. (Or, use a jar and just shake them together really well). Toss the sauce with the veggies and tofu and cook for another minute or so over medium heat.
4. When we’re trying to impress someone, we sprinkle green onions, cilantro or chives over this pretty little dish before serving over the quinoa. This is abundantly protein, magnesium and excitement-packed.

Peanutty Chicken Gringa Mole

An immersion blender is really the way to go here, but a regular blender works just as well. You want to wind up with a velvety smooth sauce. We would like to take this opportunity to apologize to our Spanish-speaking friends for insulting your grandmother’s mole with this pantry rendition. We’d like to think your grandma would be proud of us for being so clever when pressed for time and lacking authentic ingredients. That said, this gringa mole is freaky delicious and we’re not ashamed to pull it out of the pantry!

Serves 4 – 6
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
2 tablespoons chili powder
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 14.5 oz. can Muir Glen chipotle fire roasted diced tomatoes
1 cup low-sodium chicken broth
2 tablespoons peanut butter
2 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped
8 pieces of chicken, about 4 pounds total

1. Preheat oven to 350° F. Heat oil in a sauté pan over medium heat. Add onion and sauté until translucent. Add garlic and spices and continue to sauté to toast and develop flavor, but don’t let the garlic burn.
2. Drain and reserve the liquid from the tomatoes. Add the diced tomatoes, broth, peanut butter and chocolate and simmer for 10 minutes. If you don’t have the chipotle flavored diced fire roasted tomatoes, substitute 2 chipotle peppers, roughly chopped with a 14.5 oz can of regular or fire roasted diced tomatoes, drained.
3. Blend the mixture until smooth with an immersion blender, food processor or blender. Add the reserved tomato liquid if the sauce is too thick; it should look like a thick sauce, not paste.
4. Sear the chicken in a heavy-bottomed hot sauté pan over medium-high heat until browned on both sides. Add to a baking dish, cover with sauce and braise in the oven for 45 minutes to one hour until chicken is cooked through. If the sauce starts to dry out too much, cover the dish with aluminum foil.
5. Serve with corn or flour tortillas, rice and beans.  Switch the peanut butter for almond butter, the chicken for shrimp and you have another fantastic gringa mole to serve up next week.

Love cookies for breakfast?

You can’t have cookies for breakfast (ahem, Carrie), but you can stir a dollop of peanut butter into your oatmeal! Stir any nut butter paired with some honey into your hot cereal and it really does taste like eating a bowl of cookies for breakfast. Not only that, the protein and magnesium of the nut butter helps the oatmeal stick to your ribs so you stay satisfied longer.

Storing your natural nut butters:

The oils in nut butter can go rancid if the butter is improperly stored. If you can exercise more self-control than the Pantry Raiders (not going through a jar of almond butter in 10 days), please refrigerate! Because natural separation of oil and nut happens, give a good stir before diving in. Or, store in a tightly closed container upside down so the oil is pushed toward the bottom of the jar and more easily combined.

By Diana Sieger and Carrie Rowe