Remember Jalapeno Indecision 2006? I’ve finally decided on a recipe to use them up (most of them, anyway.)

I wanted to make a main dish, so recipe Runners Up for the Jalapeno Challenge are:
Peanut Butter Stuffed Jalapeno Poppers (!)
Jalapeno Brownies
How awesome do those sound?!

Many thanks to Melody of the very excellent Melomeals for being the unwitting inspiration for this dish. She gave me an awesome vegan baked jalapeno “popper” idea using cashew cream (see the comment here), and them my mind drifted to cashews, Thailand, juicy mangos, exotic men in hula skirts, and (focus, Vanessa!) this recipe idea.

Adding to this exotic adventure is my friend The QueenBee. She whisked me out of Brooklyn for a suburban ingredients-gathering safari to Whole Foods, Trader Joes, The Cheesecake Factory, and Old Navy. Old Navy was her idea, I swear, and she made me buy that faux-Members Only jacket under penalty of walking my carless butt home 50 miles. The trip really was pretty exotic: we spotted a Great Blue Heron gliding over the expressway and, morbidly, what looked like a dead penguin on the side of the road.

The safari was successful and I was able to gather ingredients to make the hot hot hot Mango Cashew Stirfry.

Serves: 3-4
Time: about 1 hour – lots of chopping!

Mango Cashew Stirfry

2 cups raw cashews
peanut oil
4 jalapenos (green OR red, red would be prettier), deseeded and minced
1 ½ inches ginger, minced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 Tbl minced lemongrass
2 mangos, peeled and cubed
3 large handfuls green beans with the ends snapped off (buy 4 handfuls so with the ends off it’s closer to 3)
1 bunch of green onions, sliced
3 Tbl soy sauce
3 Tbl vegetarian stirfry sauce (found it next to the oyster sauce in the Asian section)
juice of 1 lime, more wedges to serve
handful of cilantro, chopped

Serve with jasmine rice

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For anyone who’s familiar with my eating habits, it should come as no surprise that I’d conduct a thorough investigation to unmask the best peanut butter ever. I’m literally, and please excuse the pun, a peanut butter nut. I like it stirred into oatmeal for breakfast, I like it spread on a banana for a snack, I’m a sucker for Ramen noodles w/ a side of PB&J, I sneak it into dinners like Build-Your-Own Thai Lettuce Wraps, Mole Enchiladas and other Southeast Asian, Indian, and African inspired dishes. And I’ve always got a jar, usually two, at home and in the office for spoonful-by-spoonful snacking. So I decided to put on my lab coat, enlist some help, and get down to business to discover the best peanut butter ever via a blind taste test.

About the style of peanut butters tasted:
I only tested peanut butters that are both smooth and blended (not separated.) When you eat as much peanut butter as I eat and you make messes like I make messes you’ve gotta stick with the no-stir kind of peanut butter - the jars where the peanuts and oil are NOT separated. Decoagulating the separated kind has been known to result in some dastardly spillage, and The Sistaster does not think highly of oil slicks in the kitchen. So this study mostly eliminates “natural” peanut butters. Personally, I don’t discriminate between chunky and smooth but to limit my variables I thought it best just to test smooth peanut butters since the flavor, color, texture, and nuttiness factors would be easier to judge without the actual nuts present. I chose a selection of peanut butters that I hope are widely available to the average pb consumer.

Peanut Butters Tested (in alphabetical order):

Jif Creamy
Peter Pan Creamy
Reese’s Creamy
Skippy Creamy
Smart Balance Omega Peanut Butter
Whole Foods “Whole Kids” Organic Smooth

Tasting Technique Used
I blindfolded the jars of peanut butter (see image below), not the tasters, and asked the tasters to sample and evaluate each peanut butter based on the following criteria: color, texture, nuttiness, and flavor. Tasters were then asked to order each jar based on overall preference. Water and table crackers were provided for palate cleansing.

Taste Test | Comments (7)