Whether you use it for baking treats, making pills more enticing, Kong snuffing, or simply letting your dog lick a dab off your finger—dogs love their peanut butter. What better way to ensure that this delicious food is safe and nutritious than to make it yourself? It couldn’t be simpler to do.

Small Batch PB
Ingredients:

• 1 cup unsalted, roasted peanuts
• 1 tsp. honey or molasses (optional)
• Salt to taste (optional)
• 2 tsp. or more peanut or safflower oil

Directions:
Place peanuts along with the optional honey and salt into a food processor or high-speed blender. Process for a minute or two and then drizzle in the oil (if necessary).

Process until the PB is the desired consistency. It is important to note that PB goes through different stages: starting with a crushed “blob,” then to a paste, to a thicker paste and finally to a creamy paste. When I first made PB I wasn’t aware of all the stages, so stopped at “thicker paste” which made it difficult to spread! But only a minute or two more processing time results in a perfect creamy paste. Lesson here is to keep processing. If your blender or food processor gets too warm, turn it off, and let it cool, and continue processing. For crunchy style PB, reserve ¼ cup or so of the peanuts, chop them up finely (or process them for only a minute or two), remove from the processor. Then prepare the rest of the peanuts into PB. Using a spatula, add the chopped nuts to the PB.
Refrigerate in an airtight container.

Facts:
- Roasted peanuts contain 22 percent more antioxidants than the uncooked kind.
- A 2 Tbsp serving has 188 calories, 8 g protein, 16 g total fat.
- PB packs vitamin E and cholesterol-regulating monounsaturated fats.
- PB is cholesterol-free.
- Vitamins such as H and K in PB give dogs a shiny coat.

History:
Although peanut butter was “invented” by South American Indians, it is believed its use as a food, for general consumption, happened about 1890 by a physician in St. Louis who used it as a health food for the elderly. Also during that period (1895), Dr. John Harvey Kellogg (of breakfast cereal fame) patented the process of making peanut butter for the patients at his Battle Creek Sanitarium, a health food retreat in Michigan. Records show that in 1903 Ambrose W. Straub of St. Louis also patented a machine to make peanut butter. (from goodearthpeanuts.com)