January 19, 2011

Peanut Butter Playdoh + Food Processor = Love

Peanut Butter Playdoh and I have had a long standing relationship. Long long ago, in a land far away, known as Missouri, Briton and I used to make it several times a week. He would sit up to the counter in his clip on booster chair, which I now cringe to think about (the counter was made of recycled bowling alley - see, we've always been a little odd int eh renovation department - and we installed it ourselves without any real knowledge of how to put in a countertop) rolling and cutting and making shapes while I snuck chunks of dough from the bowl to eat. And then after a while he could catch on the the fact that I was eating up his playdoh and would give up on playing and get down to eating. This was back in the day when I thought he was a picky eater and worried that he wasn't getting enough protein. Of course, now that I'm faced with miss "I only eat beige things" Evelyn, I know what a real picky eater is.
The good news is that peanut butter playdoh is beige-ish and we all still love it. What I don't love though, is mixing it. Sure I do it. But it's sticky, and hard to get really smooth unless you are willing to really get in there with some elbow grease. And frankly, I'm usually sneaking bites and deciding that it will do long before it gets to a really good consistency. Ah-ha, but that was before I got the beloved food processor.
Now, of course, this stuff is just a quick whiz away, which means that we have it around pretty much all the time. Which means I needed to make it a leeetle more healthy. Not that it was ever too terrible. I've always added rolled oats to it to help bulk it out and cut back a little on the sugar, but now we are going sugarless (there is still honey) and no one has noticed the difference. The trick, I think, is that I'm whizzing the dry milk and rolled oats together before adding the playground, chopping them into submission and creating more "dry" to go with the "wet" so the sugar isnt' missed consistency wise. And taste wise, well, I always though the original was a little too sweet. Hence the sneaking of chucks. It's almost candy in it's earlier form.
Just in case you don't have food processor or want to try it in it's sweeter form, here are the traditional proportions

1 cup of dry fat free milk
1 cup of sugar (I never used that much though, more like 1/2)
3/4 cup creamy peanut butter
3/4 cup honey (again, I rarely used this much, it depended on how dry the dough was that day)
optional - 1/2 cup of rolled oats

I generally add the milk, sugar, peanut butter and oats all at once and then add enough honey to make a good knead-able dough. If you get too sticky you can use more powdered milk as you would flour with regular dough.

Now for the healthier and faster version (highly recommended)

1 cup of dry fat free milk
1 cup of rolled oats
3/4 cup of peanut butter
4 T of honey (more or less)

Whizz the milk and oats to a fine powder and then add the peanut butter. Once that is combined, drizzle in the honey while the processor is on until it starts to form into a ball, just like with pie crust.

Just like with the original, use extra dry milk as you would flour if it's too sticky. Store any extra (this makes a good sized batch) in an airtight container in the fridge. Although you probably don't need to refrigerate it, I just tend to eat it if I see it, so into the fridge it goes. Out of sight , out of mind. Or at least I hope.

Do you have any food-play recipes? I think I might be able to branch out a little with Evelyn's food if it's part of her play. Any suggestions?