In cooking, as in life, many of us spend time pondering the one ingredient which has, or might, enrich and satisfy. In life it may be the ideal partner, perfect children, a successful career, that fourteen million to one long-shot on the lottery… In cookery it might be the addition of the exact amount of salt, finding the perfect and consistent chilli, the miracle of the low-fat spread that actually does taste and cook like ‘Lurpak slightly salted’ butter but with no calories whatsoever!

Philosophers, Psychologists, Psychiatrists, TV Pundits and Religious leaders may debate endlessly whether it is the search for this perfection, or the achievement of it, that is the important factor in human development. That we have evolved beyond our ape ancestors and living cousins, is beyond doubt. After all do we require endless grooming; do we constantly feed our faces; are our young constantly seeking thrills and challenging their seniors; is the right to mate something worth fighting for… No! We have evolved beyond all this baseness!

So it is in our culinary appetites and desires. Yet the quest is not over and still we search for those magic ingredients. For some, and I have to include myself in this category, it can mean that supermarket shopping can take a seriously long time as we gaze at labels, searching for ever stronger spectacles to read the ever smaller print on the labels of enlightenment. What exactly are the ingredients in our favourite “Death by Fudge” cheesecake!? What is poly-unsaturated-micro-protein when it’s at home? Where can I buy E4825, and the sixteen other E numbers listed in that smaller than small print? Why is the box four times bigger than the product? Did it shrink in transit?

A moment of personal enlightenment came from the label of one of my personal, and more serious, addictions. A product so moreish that mere sight of it in the cupboard will rapidly lead to it’s complete elimination. A product indeed so irresistible that if it survives (intact) at the end of the journey from the supermarket to my kitchen, then it is in severe danger of not reaching the shelf at all. Amazing will-power and the creation of self-imposed rules has resulted in ensuring that at least some of this product may, on a good day, make it onto the cupboard shelf. Indeed if there are sufficient other products to store, it may be hidden by them and survive for at least another couple of days.

It’s worth mentioning here that the rule imposed upon myself is not necessarily transferable, or even appropriate, for other people, for they may have a different finger length to myself. The rule being that when unpacking a new jar of temptation it may be sampled and then resampled only to the depth that an index finger can reach, unaided by spoon or other implement. By this means I am able to put the jar, and some of it’s contents, on the shelf with good grace and clear conscience. For those who have not watched the videos, and who could blame you, I am the possessor of the short, stubby digits that are frequently seen to alternatively sort and then sample the goods under construction.

So it was that whilst shopping, slowly, I glanced at the label concerned.

The label, on this pernicious substances, makes glorious reading to a lazy chef whose site is called LazyVeggie.com. It reads

Ingredients:

Peanuts

Salt.

Aah!

Oh Glorious Day!

How simple could this be to create. No Cooking. No Waiting. No Problem.

But wait! There was a word before Peanut, it said ‘roasted’. Pause for thought. Visions of a heated oven and the shelling of freshly roasted peanuts flashed before me.

Simplicity is so often a good thing.

When combined with a ‘Eureka’ moment it can fit the LazyVeggie.com concept exactly.

So it was that my next trip to the supermarket included the purchase of a large pack of ‘Ready Salted Roasted Peanuts’, and at a reduced price!

Bargain Ingredients.

The kitchen provided the necessary blender.

So was born the LazyVeggie.com single ingredient, no cooking, no waiting recipe.

LazyVeggie Peanut Butter.

Ingredients

Ready Salted Roasted Peanuts

(large, small, cheap or expensive, own brand or branded – who cares).

Method

Pour nuts into blender.

Blend.

When the right degree of smoothness is achieved, stop.

To avoid making stubby fingers even stubbier and adding too much colour to the mix best to switch it off.

Now, for those who like to play with their food, the fun begins.

Add chocolate, or chilli.

Spread on toast or add to soup.

The world is your oyster card!

Should you be exhausted by this culinary activity, and as a last resort, put in a jar and place on a shelf.

Contemplate the money you have saved!