11 Ways to Update Peanut Butter and Jelly

Meg Favreau — Fri, 20 May 2011 10:36:21 +0000

Most of us have been eating peanut butter and jelly sandiwches since we first moved to solid food. Inexpensive, quick, and easy to pack, it's unsurprising that many of us continue to nosh on these sandwiches well into adulthood. But the ubiquitous PB&J can also get a little boring after a while. Try one of these easy variations to add some excitement to the old sandwich. (See also: Sex Up Your Sandwich: Ideas for Budget-Concious Brown Baggers)

1. Use Other Butters

Cashew butter, almond butter, and sesame seed butter all taste great. Most — especially cashew butter and almond butter — are available in both crunchy and smooth.

2. Make PB&J for Breakfast

What's better than peanut butter and jelly? Peanut butter and jelly drenched in maple syrup. Rachel Ray has a recipe for peanut butter and jelly french toast sticks.

3. Go Elvis

The King loved his peanut butter and banana sandwiches. Give a hat tip to Elvis by adding sliced banana between your peanut butter and jelly. Or try other fresh fruits like sliced apples or pears.

4. Grill It

The bread gets toasty, and the filling gets gooey and warm. It's a perfect quick winter comfort meal.

5. Add Raisins

...or dried cranberries, chopped prunes, or any other dried fruit.

6. Prepare a Pina PB&J

Sprinkle a layer of shredded coconut (preferably unsweetened) between the peanut butter and the jelly.

7. Lose the Bread

Almond butter and jam with raisins between two rice cakes is one of my favorite travel snacks — plus it's gluten-free. You can also try PB&J wrapped in a tortilla, on pizza crust, or on banana bread for a decadent dessert sandwich.

8. Toast Up PB&J S'mores

Add a layer of peanut butter and a layer of jelly to graham crackers before smushing them in with chocolate and a soft marshmallow.

9. Prepare PB&J Pie Pockets

These handheld peanut butter and jelly pockets look a little like Uncrustables, but feature peanut butter and jelly inside of a flaky pie crust.

10. Use a Savory Jelly or Jam

My mom gave me a jar of red pepper jelly for Christmas. It's a great pairing for cheeses, but also makes for a totally different peanut butter and jelly experience.

11. Put PB&J on Your Burger

This might sound like an example of two sandwiches that should never meet, but peanut butter and jelly burgers are popping up at restaurants across the United States. The key, it seems, is to choose your jam carefully. Very carefully.

Do you make a great, atypical peanut butter and jelly sandwich? What variations am I missing? Share in the comments!

This article is from Meg Favreau of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

What to Do With 100 Tomatoes

Silicon Valley Blogger — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 13:00:16 +0000

Recently I tried my hand at being a little bit more self-sufficient by growing some veggies at home, a great way to eat well for less money. You can certainly get your produce from Safeway or even your local farmers market, but a garden can be a fun family project to tend to, especially when your kids are participating. I therefore embarked on a project to grow tomatoes from seed packets. I started small, but before long, I got a bigger crop than I expected.

Ultimately, I ended up with a fantastic crop of tomatoes that I needed to put to good use. I had to become resourceful! So I thought of applying them as an ingredient in a variety of dishes. Here are my top 10 favorite uses.

What To Do with 100 Tomatoes?

1. Salads

Salads are simple, healthy, and low-calorie. Just toss the cherry tomatoes in with your greens, or cut the bigger ones into wedges for a bigger taste.

2. Sandwiches

What good is bacon and lettuce without a great big slice of tomato? Slice up those normal-sized tomatoes, and eat them in your favorite sandwich, on a juicy burger, or on toast with sardines.

3. Tomatoes and Ham

Grill big, juicy heirloom tomatoes with ham or by themselves with a pinch of seasoning and some oil.

4. Pasta and Pizza Sauce

With so many tomatoes lying around, you have more than enough to flirt with different slow-roasted tomato sauce recipes. Practice makes perfect, right?

5. Salsa

Have you ever HAD fresh salsa? There is nothing better than cold, fresh tomatoes to make the freshest tasting salsa. Chop them up with onion, cilantro, basil, sea salt, pepper, and some extra virgin olive oil. Your friends will be dying for your tomatoes (and the recipe) after they try your salsa!

6. Bloody Mary Mix

Mix those tomatoes up in your favorite Bloody Mary recipe for a fantastic hangover cure!

7. Cure for Cancer?

Well, maybe not a "cure" exactly, but the lycopene in tomatoes (the stuff that makes them red) reduces the risk of some cancers. You can eat healthy and inexpensively and ward off cancer while you're at it!

8. Tomato Soup

Your grandmother's tomato soup recipe never tasted so good as with your fresh tomatoes. No need to open that can of Campbell's when you can make soup at home.

9. Stuff Them

Empty out your tomatoes and slow-cook them for a few hours for a new twist on appetizers and salad bowls. You can fill them with cheeses, salad, pasta — anything you like! — for a dish that is sure to impress.

10. Can Them

This tradition is quickly dying out. Our grandmothers once grew their own vegetables and fruits in abundance and then canned them for use all year. So if you just cannot eat them right now, don't.

When You Cannot Stomach One More Tomato

After a while, you may just yearn for something...else. I would like to say that I am a gourmet cook and that I spent months crafting new tomato recipes for all my friends and family. Unfortunately, they were sick of them too. So, I had to reach far into the recesses of my mind for ideas. Here are some ideas for determining the fate of the tomatoes you cannot eat!

1. Drink Them

Make yourself another great big "healthy" Bloody Mary to help you relax while you figure out what to do with the tomatoes.

2. Donate Them

I already noted that my friends and family could no longer eat a single tomato. However, the world is full of hungry people. Give them away to shelters. Take them to flea markets to sell. Give them away to colleagues and coworkers. Try your neighbors. And when you can no longer find a single soul who will eat them, see if you can send them off to someone who could use them. I'm sure you'll find people who'll appreciate the gift.

3. Have a Good Laugh with Them

Yes, I said "laugh with them." When a bad comedian stutters and stammers through their poorly constructed humor, throw your soft, ripe tomatoes at them! Your tomatoes are gone, you get a good laugh, the comedian will be able to afford lunch — everyone's happy! I kid, of course!

Lessons from Having Too Many Tomatoes

While I may have overdid it the first time, I think that I'm going to keep on working with my vegetable garden for at least another year. Doing so will help me stick to my food budget and cut food costs. Despite some of my miscalculations with my first crop, I found myself enjoying this exercise in self-sufficiency.

Perhaps the most important thing to grow from all these mounds of tomatoes was...me. The tomatoes brought an important lesson. Just as I invested time, patience, and money into my tomatoes, I figure we should invest and believe in everything we do in life — and watch ourselves blossom and grow! I'm excited about growing other vegetables, and I look forward to seeing where my green thumb takes me.

This article is from Silicon Valley Blogger of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

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