STUFF WE LIKE: Hell's Kitchen peanut butter: It's dangerously good

In case you missed it: Peanut butter is poison. Oh, not really — only products made by Peanut Corp. of America, a Georgia factory that shipped products contaminated with salmonella and scared the bejeepers out of people. Which is why I’m guessing you had no idea where your Skippy or Jif was made before you tossed it in the garbage.

So let’s make a New Year’s resolution about a month late: Restock your shelves with Hell’s Kitchen peanut butter. That is, if you’re ready for a peanut butter that tastes more like something you’d spoon atop a dessert or, if you’re like me, you’d just eat for dessert.

For all the ingredients listed on store-brand peanut butter, Hell’s Kitchen boasts five: freshly roasted peanuts, honey, peanut oil, salt and brown sugar, all of it blended together at the restaurants in Minneapolis and Duluth (and no, not Duluth, Georgia). The resulting taste is sweet and smoky, lacking in any kind of funky or gritty aftertaste that comes from store-bought varieties. It’s for those reasons that, growing up, I wouldn’t touch peanut butter — I’d have jelly sandwiches. I was an anomaly given looks askance by neighborhood parents.

But I can’t think of too many foods I wouldn’t put HK’s peanut butter on — pretzels, sausage bread, pancakes, each one made better with just a dollop.

Cynthia Gerdes, CEO of Hell’s Kitchen and wife of one of the restaurant’s co-owners, said they make about 50 gallons of peanut butter a week.

You can also try it for free at the restaurants. And when the taste convinces you never to buy out-of-state peanut butter again, you can buy jars there or online at www.hellskitcheninc.com.

Tags: arts and entertainment, peanut butter, hells kitchen, stuff we like, reviews, restaurants, food