Bamba Baby 🥜
When I was a kid, I was addicted to Bamba, an Israeli snack that looks like Cheetos but tastes like peanut butter, which is very popular with small children. I would pretty much eat a bag a day. Once I went overseas for three weeks, and took 21 bags of Bamba with me (just in case).
This popular snack may explain why so few children in Israel are allergic to peanuts. Israeli children suffer from peanut allergies at only one-tenth the rate of Western counterparts with similar genetic backgrounds. The Learning Early About Peanut Allergy (LEAP) study tested the theory that the very low rates of peanut allergy in Israeli children were a result of high levels of peanut consumption from a young age. They found that "for babies at high risk for peanut allergy, eating peanut foods early and regularly reduced the risk of peanut allergy by more than 80 percent, compared to peanut avoidance." And from 2017, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) issued guidelines recommending the early introduction of peanuts to infants to help prevent peanut allergies.
You don't need to run out and get Bamba now (this is not an advertisement for my favourite snack food). You can achieve the same effect with peanut butter. I didn't grow up on peanut butter and thus we never really had much of it at home, to Lachlan's dismay. Until last year, when Sarah brought us her homemade peanut butter. It was so good, that we finished the jar in less than a week and I immediately asked her for the recipe (see below). If you decide to give this a go, I must warn you: I predict your peanut butter consumption will increase in the near future. Also, my biggest tip is to select peanuts that you like and are yummy before you process them. I tried to do this peanut butter once with peanuts I got from Coles and did not like the result as much.
Once you've made the peanut butter, there are so many recipes you can use it with. For example, peanut butter and sliced bananas on rice cakes, or in the green curry and broccoli soup from a couple of weeks ago. You can use it in smoothies, and granola. You can use it for dan dan noodle or in ramen tare. So with all of this, and Lachlan pretty much eating it out the jar, peanut butter doesn't stay long in this house 🥜
Friends update:
Cluny mentioned that she had a broccoli in her fridge that she wanted to use, and she had all the ingredients for the 🥦 soup, so she made it and her feedback was "is bloody good" and "Definitely adding the soup to my rotation" ☺️
Carla made the zucchini fritters, which I think look great 🤩
Here are this week’s recipe suggestions for you to try:
Tomato bisque and fried cheese - the fried cheese sounds different but this is a seriously delicious soup.
Bucatini alla Gricia - Another really simple pasta and one of Lachlan's favourite pasta shapes. Guanciale, black pepper, Pecorino Romano, and pasta come together in a study of delicious minimalism.
Curry udon - which we made with sweet potato.
Speaking of peanut butter, here's a smoothie that uses it: 2 bananas, 2 pitted dates, handful of cashews, 1 tsp chia seeds, 1 tbsp peanut butter, and milk.
Peanut butter by Sarah
400g of roasted unsalted peanuts
75g-90g (5 tbsp) of liquid coconut oil
A few grinds of salt (maybe around 3-5g)
How to?
Whizz it in the blender for 20 seconds or until the desired consistency. Done! You’ll be sneaking casual spoonfuls out of the jar in no time.
Our meal plan from last week can be found at: https://foodfamily.app/public/meal_plans/13b92c71-b16a-4aa6-8c7c-c30233de15a5
Once again, please let us know if you make any of these recipes, how you found them, what you changed, or just drop us an email to say hi.
Thanks and see you next week,
Elle, Lachlan, M, Ginger, and Edward