"peanut butter" news and stories

Each Thursday, we round up a selection of scrumptious links from our friends over at YumSugar. Here's what they've got cooking this week:

• If you can't satisfy the craving for Girl Scout cookies, try your hand at Samoa Tartlets.
• Don't be afraid to show off your pot rack, spice rack or canned-food cave.
• Batali brings Eataly, a Turin-based Italian food bazaar, to New York -- brewpub included!
• Don't scribble grocery items as they come to mind -- there's a better way.
• Never mind debating white or red wine -- the most important question is: crunchy or creamy peanut butter?
• Get your oopa on with a Greek drink menu.
• Bag some baby bok choy before winter's end.

Mississippi's peanut production has sprouted so significantly over the last decade that the state's growers association last month generated $100,000 to send three truckloads of peanut butter to Haiti.

"Peanut butter is the perfect food in a situation like this," the association's executive director, Malcolm Broome, explained in a release. "Peanut butter is portable, nonperishable and a very good source of protein."

Not long ago, a few trucks could have held the state's entire peanut crop. A strict quota system kept Mississippi's farmers from planting the legume that's long been a staple of Georgia and Virginia fields. Since the quota was lifted in 2002, Mississippi's peanut acreage has surged from 2,000 to 20,000, with production increasing every year but one, when weather got in the way.

"We've had a lot of people really interested in peanuts," says Mike Howell, area agronomist for Mississippi State University's extension service.

Few of us want to make a complicated lasagna for solo dining -- by day six, you'll never want to see lasagna again! In this series, AOL Food staffer Sarah LeTrent taste-tests simple recipes suitable for a "table for one."

When we think of peanuts, we think Virginia, ballgames and a top hat-wearing, cane-holding, monocled mascot. However, peanuts are also a staple in West African cooking and used prominently in many dishes. One such typical meal is a hearty stew made with tomatoes, sweet potatoes and peanuts.

This vegetarian version of the soup relies on the saltiness and creaminess of peanut butter -- the pantry staple and venerated American spread that is an often unsung hero in meals that don't include jelly or two slices of bread.

Presenting a new (and more acceptable) way to eat peanut butter by the spoonful.

Find the Peanut Stew recipe after the jump.

Why buy a jar of processed peanut butter when you can easily make it at home?

Yesterday, the University of Pennsylvania announce that, in light of the threat of salmonella-tainted peanuts, they are all peanut butter and related products from the schools' dining halls, cafes and vending machines. In place of the products, there are signs stating why the staple is missing. School officials aren't saying when peanut butter will return to campus, but they're in conversations with suppliers to determine that date.

Thing is, they've even pulled peanut butter that has shown no sign of being contaminated, stating that:

Because the investigation is ongoing and the list of suspected items from the FDA keeps expanding, we have taken a conservative, proactive stance.

What do you think? Positive and proactive, or inflammatory and fearful?