Like Buttah

Back in the 1990s, Mike Myers used to do a great skit on Saturday Night Life called “Coffee Talk.” Accurately pronounced co-AH-fee tawlk (although I personally do not enunciate this way: shut up, Zinful!), his Linda Richman character declared everything that pleased her (much like anything that came out of Barbra Streisand’s mouth), “Like buttah!”

Butter is smooth, a guilty pleasure, rich and delicious. Everybody has at some point or another loved butter, even if unknowingly. Some of us ate butter, from its stick form, because the teenage body requires pure butter in its diet (it feeds the zits).

You know when you go out and have a nice, expensive meal in a fancy restaurant? Do you know what usually makes it taste like heaven?

I could but will not give you a dissertation on butter. This is precisely why the Geek Gods gave us Wikipedia. Bon Appétit did a piece on the flip-flop flippancy of science regarding butter (“It’s good for you!” “No, wait, it will kill you!!” “It can help you lose weight!!!").

Julia Child loved it, and spoke the truth about it.

There used to be a time when there were only two types of butter in the supermarket: the (plain) dairy product and the peanut kind. The most variety you could count on was salted and unsalted. Progress has come to butter!

This started because Reese’s has turned their cups into a peanut butter, and added another with chocolate. There was also a conversation about Trader Joe’s cookie butter and the baking possibilities. And in these two separate conversations a blog post was born.

These kinds of butters are perfect for breakfast and snacks (as well as packed lunches).

Making homemade peanut butter is ridiculously easy and a perfect gift for folks who are trying to steer clear of processed foods. All it takes is peanuts. You may add a little bit of oil, sugar or substitute, and a dash of salt.

Peanut butter is probably very popular and most people’s favorite guilty pleasure since childhood. Tasty-Yummies ran veritable primer on several varieties of nut butters that you all should bookmark. The article includes recipes for raw cashew, almond, pecan, sunflower seed, and Nutella, as well as the spices that go well with nut butters.

The magazine Cooking Light also has a primer on the topic, and it covers almond, cashew, hazelnut, macadamia, peanut, pecan, pistachio, and walnut – with suggestions for cooking with these butters as an ingredient.

For savory, compound butters, all you need is unsalted butter and a bit of imagination. These can be used over fish, meats, vegetables, on breads, and certainly to cook with (if you wish).

SheKnows has a mother recipe with several varieties that all sound delicious: herb garlic, citrus tarragon, blue cheese and chive, smoked paprika and jalapeño, spiced brown sugar with walnuts and raisins, and even a cookie butter.

I’ve done a simple garlic and chive compound (with pressed garlic and fresh, chopped chives), with unsalted butter, and pepper sauce. We used to melt it over roasted potatoes and yams. You can also use to give Ramen a different flavor (obviously you'd skip the flavor pack when preparing this as a side dish).

Finally, Brit + Co has a veritable festival of links for flavored butters from the spicy to the sweet, from the simple to the sublime. There are 29 recipes here, some with fruit, cheese, nuts, and my personal favorite: bacon chive butter!

These make for spectacular additions to your dinner table, but they also make for out-of-this-world gifts. Something to consider for the upcoming holiday season.

The following links are for those of you who just like to read about food. These are affiliate links, and if you choose to buy, a portion of the sales go to fund my starving artist existence, just so you know…

Garlic herb buttah

Bacon buttah

Peanut buttah 4-packs (coconut, cinnamon raisin, honey pretzel, and sesame cranberry)

Amish-Buggy Gift Pack flavored buttahs (apple, blackberry, cherry, blueberry, peach, and plum)

Jif Whips (peanut, maple and brown sugar, as well as whipped peanut buttah)


UPDATE: If you enjoyed this article and the recipes in it, you can link to its companion piece, a dedicated Pinterest board you can refer to any time.

http://www.pinterest.com/amapolapress/food-goddess-butter/