Many months ago, when the boys and I went to buy seeds for our 2016 garden they convinced me to plant peanuts. They grow them in their school garden, so I figured why not?!
They grew beautifully, tiny yellow blooms, green plants, and finally in October the leaves started to yellow so I knew (according to my Googling) that it was time to dig them up.
Thankfully, my mom came out and helped me that day. It was really hard work!
I covered the back of Ben's pick-up with the peanuts so they could dry and Wilbur couldn't reach them. Then we went to Haiti. In Haiti, we visited peanut gardens and I saw the errors in my ways - I had simply planted them into the ground, the Haitians planted them in long hills! I'll know to do this next year so that harvesting will be MUCH easier!
After we came back from Haiti, when Ben's parents visited us before Thanksgiving, Sue helped me clean the dirt off the shells and then just about everyone in the entire family helped shell them.
Finally, with very sore fingers, it was time to roast them and take the skins off!
I thought my food processor would do the job of making peanuts into peanut butter, or mamba as they call it in Haiti, but nope. That only resulted in chopped up peanuts. Silly me. The poor peanuts sat around for another week or so waiting for me to figure out how to grind them, when my mom offered up her old grinder to see if it would work. Annnnnnnd, wallah!!
We finally, after all that time and effort, made mamba! The full results of all that work was one pint of the best tasting mamba you've ever had. It's not very creamy, but what it lacks in creaminess it makes up for in taste.
Next year, I'll know more...or at least I'll be able to look back at this blog post and be reminded!
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