why yes, i do love peanut butter.

hola! happy march!

marshall & i are picking up where we left off on the office.. which is way back on season six, episode eight. we are way behind. so, what i am trying to elude to, is that i am going to try to breeze through this post as fast as possible.

here goes!

i mentioned that today was national peanut butter lover’s day. i eat a lot of peanut butter, but i don’t eat it every day. i made a point to eat some with my breakfast this morning to start the holiday off right.

6 oz plain greek yogurt + 1 cup kashi go lean + 1 banana + a glob of mighty maple peanut butter.

the celebration continued at the office, where i set out freshly baked peanut butter cookies.

the recipe is a simple one that i have used for over a decade:

• 1 cup smooth peanut butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 egg, slightly beaten

mix the ingredients, roll into teaspoon-sized balls and drop onto greased cookie sheet, press down with a fork and bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes.

sometimes i throw in chocolate chips, vanilla extract or turn them into thumbprint cookies and fill them with jam.. but today, i kept it simple with the three ingredients and made it a double batch. the recipe above makes 20 cookies, so my doubled batch made 40. enough to share with the whole office!

the rest of my day was typical.. leftovers for lunch, cottage cheese & crackers for my snack and a heart pumping 45 minutes on the stairmill for my workout. marshall came to the gym with me again. makes me happy.

i made pumpkin mac & cheese and chicken strips for dinner.. recipe can be found here.

while dinner was cooking, i made a FOURTH batch of my latest addiction: protein cereal.

after trying out mama pea’s homemade version of cinnamon toast crunch cereal, i had the itch to experiment. i love adding protein powder to my baking adventures, so i decided to try it out on the cereal recipe.

i started last night and experimented with various types of powders and different combinations of fat (earth balance, peanut butter, coconut oil, etc.). the experimenting continued into today and i made a couple different batches.  i ultimately came out with, what i think, is a great recipe for protein packed cereal.

oh, and you better believe it is peanut butter filled.. in honor of the national holiday, of course!

peanut butter chocolate protein cereal.

adapted from mama pea’s original recipe

• 1/2 cup garbanzo bean flour (i used bob’s red mill)
• 1/4 cup peanut flour (i used trader joe’s)
• 1/3 cup EAS vanilla premium protein powder (this is a blend of whey, soy & casein protein)
• 1-2 TB unsweetened cocoa powder (depending on how chocolaty you want it)
• a couple pinches of salt
• 1 cup water
• 1 TB coconut oil
• 1 TB natural peanut butter
• organic cane sugar for sprinkling (optional)

*note: i think the type of protein powder will make or break the recipe. i tried it with pure soy protein powder and it was a flop. feel free to experiment with your own kinds of powder and let me know how they work!

directions:

combine flours, powders and salt in a bowl.

add water and mix well before adding coconut oil and peanut butter.

line an 11” x 17” rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper. pour contents of bowl onto pan.  to be honest, it makes a tad too much batter.. so i didn’t use it all. probably all but 1/4 cup. after a few experiments, i realized it is best to have the layer of batter suuuper thin, so instead of changing the measurements of everything, i just didn’t use all the batter.

spread the mixture to the edges and corners of the pan. sprinkle with a bit of sugar, if desired. bake at 375 degrees for 25 minutes.

when it is done baking, the edges will be curled up and the cereal sheet will be crisp. it might be a tad soft in the middle, but that is just because the batter was a little too thick. no big deal. just keep following the steps!

grab a pizza cutter or a knife and cut the cereal into small squares.

if the middle pieces are still a little soft, go ahead and pop them back into the oven for a few minutes so they can crisp up.

or, if you are like my second batch, you spread the batter a little too thin and baked it for a tad too long, and when you try to cut it it will crumble like this:

don’t worry if that’s what happens. it will taste the same and actually it is even better when it is ultra crunchy! and perfect squares are overrated, right?

once your cereal has cooled (assuming you didn’t eat it all straight from the pan) you can put it in a bowl and top it with your favorite kind of milk.

it also stores really well.. but i can’t tell you for how long, because it won’t last more than 24 hours in this house.

enjoy!

nutrition information per serving (one serving is 1/4 of the batch):

you may think it is high in fat.. yes, it is.. but remember: it’s good fat! the fat comes from coconut oil and peanut butter.

i can’t wait to make other flavors of protein cereal. stay tuned.. this could be happening very regularly.

move over, kashi go lean, there’s a new protein cereal in town.. it is cheaper, it is delicious and it’s from scratch.

Q~

if you ate peanut butter today: how did you eat it? what kind/brand was it?

xo. janetha g.