Peanut Butter & Cracker Magic
The perfect balance of protein and starch
I’m really shocked we haven’t resorted to this Old Reliable more often, because it was pretty much a staple every other weekend while I grew up. Nothing says “partial custody” like a simple home meal, and whee doggie, you can’t get much simpler than this! Why, even a kindergartener can make this happen, and I speak from first-hand knowledge.
If you feel, as a Bad Dad, you don’t have the stamina, budget, imagination or competence to wrangle a “real dinner”, this one’s the go-to.
Prep and Cook Time:
3 to 15 minutes
Ingredients
- Nabisco Premium Saltine Crackers - http://amzn.to/11qcl3p
- JIF Peanut Butter, Creamy - http://amzn.to/11qcYtQ
Steps
- Take the jar of peanut butter out of the cupboard and place it on the dinner table, coffee table, counter top, what have you.
- Run the only remotely clean butter knife you have under hot water, just to be safe.
- Open the box of saltines. If you’ve already opened them once, and unwrapped the individual plastic stacks of crackers, this will be a snap. If it’s a new box, be prepared for those sons a bitches to go everywhere.
- Plate optional. Prepare and serve on a napkin, at minumum.
- Lay out a handful of crackers. Salt side on the outside!
- Spread a generous amount of peanut butter on each cracker. Be sure to use the cleaned butter knife. Also, adjust your pressure to not destroy the cracker. That’s a rookie move, and will just make things more awkward.
- Repeat until enough servings are made. Remember, a kid won’t know he’s full for about 20 minutes, and that runs the chance of being constipated in about 4 hours.
Serves
Two, at least.
My dad taught me this one, so it’s near and dear to me. Even though he managed a grocery store,and was surrounded by the greatest food products known to modern western civilization,he dragged his carcass back from work late every night to serve this without a lick of irony.
The apartment he lived in at the time was spartan. There were no pictures on the walls, not even a Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader calendar, which I knew he had. It made sense that he would stick to the simpler things. He was raised in the Dust Bowl era in West Texas. He fell into the cotton gin as a child. He survived polio in an iron lung. He honeymooned and conceived a child of his own in a Bourbon Street hotel. He had seen enough adventures.
He could at least have hung up the calendar in the bathroom.
—
Next time: Raisin Bran Alfresco
