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Peanut butter was pretty difficult to find when I first moved to Italy; even in Rome where there are a few “international food stores” (like Castroni), portions were small, expensive, and often brands I didn’t recognize.

Now it’s easier to find peanut butter, and even some bigger / normal grocery stores will carry a jar. I find that Skippy peanut butter is most common; I think that’s because the brand, while an American brand, is very popular in the Philippines and so it gets imported for them. But there are ingredients on the label I don’t recognize, so I don’t buy it.

I often stick jars of all-natural peanut butter, sunflower seed butter, or almond butter in my luggage when I come back to Italy from a trip to the US or UK. But as my trip schedule can be unpredictable, more recently I decided to take matters into my own hands and make my own.

My cupboard is full of nuts and seeds – they make great toppings for yogurt, oatmeal, and salads; they make a great go-to snack while traveling or just in the afternoon. I started stocking up on raw, unsalted nuts when I realized some of my (used-to-be-favorite) nut brands include flavor enhancers like yeast extract to flavor them (read about why I think flavor enhancers should be avoided in my How to Make Chicken Stock & avoid MSG post). If you buy nuts, make sure the label says, NUTS and nothing else. A little salt is ok, but you might even enjoy it more if you salt them yourself – at least you can control the amount that way.

Raw, unsalted nuts mean I have a great raw material to cook with, to make into something else, and for normal snacking. Now when I snack on almonds, I don’t eat the whole bag. :)

So when my beloved almond butter was running low and there was no stocking-up trip on the near horizon, I decided to just do it myself. It’s so easy, it’s almost ridiculous to write up a recipe. The most important thing you need is patience – they will turn into butter! Try it yourself and let me know any variations you take on the recipe.

Homemade Almond Butter

Note: I think almonds with the skin on make the best butter, but it’s up to you. 

Unsalted almonds (if already toasted, skip step 1)
A food processor
Pinch salt, if desired

1. Preheat the oven to 350F / 180C. Spread the almonds in a single layer on a cookie sheet and roast for 10-15 minutes. Check halfway through and give them a shake / mix them up so they are toasted on both sides. Make sure they don’t burn, so keep an eye on them! Let the almonds cool for 30-60 minutes, until they are cool to the touch.
2. In your food processor, put the almonds in, set it to a medium or high setting, and let it do its magic! It will take time (even 10-15 minutes of continuous blending) so if you need to stop it every so often to let it cool down or to scrape the sides of the processor, do so. The almonds will go from powdery dry chunks to chunky clumps, and finally you’ll start to see a sheen as the oil in them starts breaking down. Depending on how chunky or smooth you want your almond butter (I like mine extra chunky) you’ll want to be extra patient.
   Here’s mine closer to the end – this is when I added just a bit of salt and tasted it after blending:

And when it was ready, I poured it into a jar that was almost empty and put it in the fridge! I suggest putting it in the fridge unless you’re planning to consume it quickly (within a week). I’ve had mine for about 2 months now and it’s still good; many sites suggest 3 months is max. You can also freeze almond butter, but I never have; so if you have let others know in the comments!

Will you try to make your own almond butter? Do you prefer another nut instead? 

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So delicious.

Quick and easy, only a few ingredients and one pot are needed to make this meal, and very little prep aside from the cleaning and soaking of the mussels. It can also be cheap since mussels are only a few euro for a kilo here in Italy. I’ve done this dish back in Milan as well, though without the salty sea air the experience does wane a bit. I love eating a pepata di cozze on the beach at lunch.

Pepata di Cozze – Steamed Mussels

I love the simplicity of this dish, but if you want pasta with your shellfish, try spaghetti allo scoglio (frutti di mare) or spaghetti con vongole – clams

a few cloves of garlic
olive oil
1 kilo of mussels
pepper, freshly ground
flat-leaf parsley (optional)
small tomatoes (optional)
white wine (optional)

1. Prepare the mussels if they haven’t been cleaned – soak them, scrub them well and remove the beard (step-by-step directions on cleaning mussels) and rinse them.
2. Get a large, deep cooking pot you have a lid for (glass is best so you can see in), and heat several tablespoons of olive oil in the bottom of the pan. Add the garlic cloves and sauté until they start to brown.
3. At this point, you can also add in a glass of white wine or the tomatoes if desired, and heat that back up to a fast simmer before the next step.
4. Add the drained mussels to the pot, and close the lid on top. In 4-5 minutes all the mussels should have opened – if not, turn up the heat a bit and put the lid back on for a few more minutes. Depending on how many mussels / size of pot / etc it shouldn’t take more than 10 minutes.
5. Take the pot off the heat (and turn off), and add the chopped up parsley and ground pepper. Discard any unopened mussels.
6. Serve in soup bowls and toast pieces of bread to serve at the bottom of the bowl or on the side.

The aftermath of pepata di cozze.

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I love a good Cookie Swap and two years ago I hosted my first Cookie Swap in Italy that I’m repeating this year for the third time (wanna come?). Here’s how you can get started yourself!

• Suggestions for hosting a great Cookie Swap
• Cookie recipes from Ms. Adventures in Italy
  
• Cookie cookbooks to inspire your cookies
  
• Cookie recipes from bloggers around the web

Suggestions for hosting a great Cookie Swap – Exchange

First of all, to have a Cookie Swap, you need some ground rules, and you need Cookies. First, the suggestions to have a great cookie swap:

1. Timing. I find a mid-afternoon meet-up time for a few hours works well for the swap, so people don’t have to decide if they eat dinner or eat cookies…we know which one they’ll choose but it’s better to make sure your guests can follow-up the swap with some real food – and everyone loves a party that leaves them time to go to a second party that night!
2. Every guest, really everyone, brings cookies. If a couple comes, or a guest brings a friend, that person brings their own batch of cookies, too! This way you keep the ratio of guests to cookies very high. 2 people = 2 batches of cookies. Stick to this rule! That way, the more the merrier is always true.
3. Each guest should bring at least 2 dozen cookies (of the same type). This is the minimum I recommend for a party of a dozen people, so they can sample one at the party and take one or more home. If you’re having a larger party or want to have your guests take many cookies home, you can suggest 4 or 6 dozen, but this can be a daunting amount of cookies for new or only occasional bakers. Decide based on your crowd.
4. Give a prize, and award originality! I like to give a little prize (under $5) as an incentive, and instead of focusing on only the best-looking or tasting, I give a prize for the best-named cookie, so even those ugly cookies can be rewarded if their owner has a bit of creativity. Check out my post on the 1st cookie swap for some examples of interesting cookie names.
5. Encourage your guests to bring more than one type of cookie if they feel like it. Some guests may go gung-ho and make more than one type of cookie – the more the merrier! Just make sure they bring 2 dozen of any type of cookie so others can try it and take it home.
6. Provide take-home containers or plates to display the cookies. The best part of the exchange is taking cookies home and therefore each guest should bring an extra container or you’ll need to provide some. The cookies need to be displayed in something before they are put into containers to take home, so offer your own plates for the display and then let the guests refill the now-empty containers they brought their cookies in.
7. Provide some fun or bubbly drinks, or the classic milk. Sampling cookies is hard work and it can be thirsty work, too. Provide some champagne or prosecco, cold milk, and of course water for your guests to wash the cookies down. Try to stay away from overly-sugary drinks like soda and fruit juice – save the sugar for the cookies!
8. Provide some sort of salty-savory snack (optional). With so much sugar, you might want to provide a counterpoint to the sugar by putting out fresh vegetables or some crackers so guests can take a breather from the sugar. Or maybe not.
9. Holiday music. Need I say more? A little background music does wonders for a party. I usually load up holiday music on my computer and put it to work in a corner. My favorite holiday albums to liven things up – some are even on sale now: Christmas with the Rat Pack, Carpenters’ Christmas Portrait, Elvis Christmas, the 99 most Essential Christmas Masterpieces and many others!

Cookie recipes from Ms. Adventures in Italy

Now, on to the cookies! From my own site, here are some cookie recipes you can try:

and from my site, tips for Decorating Cookies from Cookie Swap Book Author, Julia Usher.

Cookie cookbooks to inspire your cookies

If you’d rather buy a book, here are some books focused on cookie swaps and cookies in general, many of which I’ve used as inspiration or blogged about here!

Very Merry Cookie Party: How to Plan and Ho… by Virginia Van Vynckt	Martha Stewart’s Cookies: The Very Best Tre… by Martha Stewart Living Magazine	Cookie Swap: Creative Treats to Share Throu… by Julia M. Usher
The Cookie Party Cookbook: The Ultimate Gui… by Robin L. Olson	Good Housekeeping The Great Christmas Cookie Swap	Cookie Craft Christmas: Dozens of Decoratin… by Valerie Peterson
The Gourmet Cookie Book: The Single Best Re… by Gourmet Magazine	Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Melt-in-Your-Mou… by Alice Medrich	Field Guide to Cookies: How to Identify and… by Anita Chu

Cookie recipes from bloggers around the web

Here are some cookie recipe links from some great websites and blogs I love:

• Cookies at Simply Recipes
• David Lebovitz Cookies, bars & brownies
• Baking Bites Cookie recipes (try some Girl Scout cookies for the swap!)
• Dessert First cookie recipes
• Smitten Kitchen cookie recipes
• 101 Cookbooks Cookie Recipes
• Gluten free cookie recipes from Karina’s Kitchen
• Cookie recipes from Baking Bites
• Perfect Pantry’s favorite cookie recipes
• A Guide to Cookie Swaps & 28 Cookie recipes at Serious Eats
• Cookies at Tastespotting
• Cookies at FoodGawker
• Better Homes & Gardens Favorite holiday cookie recipes
• Washington Post’s 2009 Holiday Cookie guide & 2010

Do you do cookie swaps? Have any suggestions for hosting a successful one? Do you have any favorite cookie recipes to share?

Note: The cookbook and music links are affiliate links to Amazon. The blog author will get 4-6% of the purchase price. Or you can use Google to find another option!

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Before you throw it away, pick it clean, keep all the bones and skin and make some homemade stock to use immediately, or to throw in your freezer.

And you don’t have to wait until Thanksgiving, either, or just with a turkey. I do this often with one of those oven-roasted chickens you can buy in a grocery store, or at the street market here in Italy. Sometimes they even come stuffed with rosemary – save that, it’ll be part of your stock!

Before I get to the directions, I want to talk about one thing I’ve become concerned about in recent years: MSG, mono-sodium glutamate, the sodium salt of glutamic acid. The presence of MSG excies your umami-receptors which perceive the savoriness/meaty taste of foods. While there have been many studies, with no conclusive proof about whether MSG is harmful to your health, I have a problem with it.

Why? Because it makes me think what I am eating is better than it is.

I want to be conscious of and enjoy every calorie I eat, whether they are “good” or “bad” calories. I feel tricked when I discover my food has MSG in it.

One of my most horrifying discoveries was when I found it in pre-sliced turkey in the supermarket here in Italy, that I was buying to slice onto my salads. Why did turkey need flavor enhancers?

In the 1970s and 1980s, in the USA we associated MSG with “Chinese food syndrome”, and companies like Panda Express went to great lengths to then assure us with shiny stickers that they are “MSG-free!” and then when you weren’t looking, MSG snuck back into other things like Doritos (potato chips), which I experienced on my recent trip to Florida in September.

I hadn’t eaten a Dorito in years, and my first taste made me go “Wow! These are so good!” and immediately reach for more. My reaction made me suspicious, as I’m getting better at knowing when I eat something because it tastes good or because my umami-loving tastebuds are going wild* (small difference). I checked the label, and boom, MSG.

You might say, well, it’s not so bad – MSG is from seaweed, and it’s natural. I too paused at this explanation, but rationalized: salt is also a flavor enhancer, but it’s also in our bodies, and is a natural part of your body’s defense when dehydrated – your body needs salt. Does it need a seaweed derivative? What are we putting in our food?

And modern production of commercial MSG has apparently nothing to do with seaweed, and is a by-product from fermentation of beets, cane sugar, and others [More from Cornell College in the MSG story - PDF link]. Fermenting beets to derive a compound that will make you think your food is savorier than it is? Yeast extract is also a hidden source of MSG. Here’s a bunch of other hidden sources of MSG.

So what does this all have to do with today’s post about homemade chicken stock?

Broth cubes are almost always very heavy on flavor enhancers and MSG. They have a tough job to do, of course, in flavoring plain water and making it savory soup-ready, but if you can make your own homemade stock, you’ll end up with a delicious base just the same and you’ll know everything that went into making it. Make a push for more natural foods in your house!

How to make homemade chicken stock

1 chicken carcass – leftover bones, skin, and pieces of chicken
2-3 stalks celery, chopped/sliced
1 small onion, chopped
2 small carrots, chopped
Garlic cloves (optional)
Salt & Peppercorns

1. In a non-stick deep soup pan, heat up a few tablespoons of olive oil and a few cloves of garlic (optional). Add the onion and cook until slightly translucent. Add the celery and carrot and cook for several minutes.
2. If the chicken carcass isn’t already broken up, break it into pieces that will fit comfortably in the soup pan, and add them to the celery/carrot/onion mix. Cover everything with water (depending on the size of the chicken, it could be 4-8 cups of water).
3. Bring to a boil and then reduce the heat so it boils at a low simmer, occasionally giving it a stir. I usually move the pan to the smallest burner on my stove, at the lowest heat setting.
4. Simmer it for several hours, uncovered. You may want to add more water every so often, especially if it boils off enough that the liquid is not covering everything.
5. You can skim off the foamy-fatty parts with a spoon as it simmers. Alternatively, you can skim the fat after the stock has cooled down, or you can leave the fat layer intact as Elise from Simply Recipes recommends.
6. Cool and strain the solids from the liquid with a wire mesh strainer into a freezer-safe container, pushing gently on the mass so you get all the juices out before discarding the solids. Divide into smaller containers and freeze or use.

Do you make your own chicken stock? What’s your favorite meal to use it in?

Do you have any feelings about MSG?

How to use up your chicken stock once you have it:

• Italian Onion soup from Ms. Adventures in Italy
• Roasted Cauliflower Soup with Gorgonzola & Caramelized Onions from Ms. Adventures in Italy
• Spicy Pumpkin Soup from Simply Recipes
• Pho Ga (Vietnamese Chicken Soup) from Steamy Kitchen
• Double Mushroom Soup from Kalyn’s Kitchen
• matzo ball soup from smitten kitchen

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