Peanut, Peanut Butter and Jelly

Episode Transcript PB&J Parfait

the story of how we found today's recipe is such a good one I know it's like the nostalgia fairies were working overtime to make sure we found it well it could be that or just plain old dumb luck yeah it's probably much more our speed either way let's get cooking [Music] welcome to Mom's wooden spoon get your apron on and your fanny flicker ready as we cook up some nostalgia ooh yummy foreign hey this is Kristen and this is Carrie oh my gosh Carrie today we are making peanut butter and jelly parfait wow that sounds unique well I think it is the story behind this recipe just blows my mind in many ways okay and I'm so excited to share this with our listeners all right I'm ready okay so this is not from a Mary's memo at all no this recipe is actually from a flyer that came out in 1976 made by Jell-O of course um it actually is entitled Jell-O desserts kids stuff recipes 15 nifty kids desserts plus two mail-in offers oh I mean and who doesn't want a good mail-in offer I know right yeah well the story behind this is our Aunt Sandie who lived in Texas found this flyer probably in a McCall's magazine right good old McCalls Iknow right or Good Housekeeping

um because it looks like one of those promotional flyers by Jell-O that you get yeah and when we were very young 1976 I was six you were three yes we went out to Texas in July and Aunt Sandie handed this little booklet to me and said hey Kristen why don't you pick what we're going to make for dessert what an awesome move I know I was so thrilled to A be included with the grown-ups by Aunt Sandy I mean I just felt like such a big girl and being given choice as a kid is amazing yes and so she handed me this little flyer and there were lovely things like ice creamy pudding and ooh pudding sundaes Tutti Frutti pudding ooh pudding cones I know which one I would have picked which one I absolutely would have picked this one that looks like a little pumpkin oh yes it's called orange fluff and they made a little smile out of chocolate chips I mean that just screams young Carrie oh yes but Kristen little Kristen chose the peanut butter and jelly parfait I mean not just peanut butter peanut butter and jelly and I have distinct memories of being so proud we all sat down to dessert I noticed all of the adults take their first bite and stop

and in my little six-year-old brain I knew and they hated it oh so you went for the highest of highs yes to the lowest of lows I did so let's go forward in time to this past July oh lets you gave me I did an awesome birthday gift I did because I'm an awesome sister you found the joys of Jell-O cookbook from the 1970s I did it was at a thrift store and I was like oh my gosh Kristen will not stop talking about this peanut butter and jelly parfait memory yes I've been looking for the recipe for decades yes and I thought well maybe it'll be in this 1970s Jell-O cookbook that's right so I pulled it out of the gift bag I'm so excited I did I'm looking through the pages looking for peanut butter and jelly parfait and a flyer falls out of it onto the floor and it looks super familiar and it was this 15 nifty kids dessert flyer and I opened it up to the first page and there was the peanut butter and jelly parfait recipe

it was in the joys of Jell-O cook book just shoved in there by the previous owner what are the chances that's incredible that after decades of searching for that your sister would save the day that is why this podcast is meant to be things just keep happening like this it's so awesome that was super fun yeah and you know I remember the cover it's a little boy with a kind of reddish hair Freckle face and eating a scoop of Jell-O I remember that like it triggered something in my brain he looks a little like Ricky Schroeder back in the day maybe he just looks like Ricky Schroeder and that's what I remember that's right but I I swear I do have a memory of seeing that little flyer oh my gosh so exciting so you have not eaten this since you were six years old and disappointed all the adults no so as an adult eating this we're gonna really get to see why so this recipe goes in a parfait glass so it's pretty it's kind of stripy yes yep and so basically you make instant vanilla pudding and add some peanut butter to it sure and then in my mind trying to remember it back through all the years I thought you then made like grape or strawberry Jell-O and the layer was a Jell-O layer in between the pudding layer but that's not it okay you actually take jelly and water it down a little bit and kind of drizzle that on top of each layer of peanut butter pudding yeah I'm feeling like I already understand the adults in this scenario maybe it will be delicious maybe it will be you know and I see here that you have beautiful parfait glasses and I'm so impressed why thank you I inherited those from my mother-in-law and we haven't used them in well decades well I mean so this is perfect gives you a chance to pull them out that's right I like it okay so I'm gonna boss everybody around because I'm sure that's what I would have done at six you'd have bossed me around for sure I will do the jelly and so the jelly is a quarter cup of strawberry or raspberry preserves mixed with a half a teaspoon of water to thin it out a little bit so that'll be interesting which one did you go for strawberry or raspberry I went for strawberry because I figured that would have been what me as a little kid probably would have chosen probably and most likely what Aunt Sandie had in the house oh right so Carrie do you remember the jelly they still make it the jelly that was striped with peanut butter that goober it was called goober do I did you always want that so badly me too and Mom would always say it's not enough it's overpriced and you don't get enough of what you wanted it was even quantities of jelly and peanut butter right I personally put on twice as much peanut butter as I do jelly I think I remember her saying well you're gonna run out of the peanut butter yeah and just be left with this kind of gross jelly right which was a bootleg answer as far as I was concerned I mean I wanted that badly lets try to find out mom yeah Mom yes let's not just say no before we know I know gosh Debbie Downer also Carrie do you remember what type of peanut butter we always had at our house extra crunchy yes I don't think it was until I moved out of the house that I actually had creamy peanut butter I don't think I did either now here's a fun little tidbit ooh tiddly bit it has to have been three months ago I said something to my husband we have had creamy peanut butter in the house since the day we've been married yeah we both eat quite a bit peanut butter and I said you know the last time I was at home I had some peanut butter it was of course extra crunchy it was so good crunchy peanut butter is my favorite yeah and I would love maybe the next time we buy some to just get crunchy for once yeah and my husband looks at me and he's like I love crunchy peanut butter the best why have we been buying creamy for the last 10 plus years it's neither of our favorites no how did this even happen that's so funny we both bought creamy because we thought it was the favorite of the other person oh so either you're very very poor communicators or you're just so thoughtful of each other's wants and needs oh totally the poor communicators so the way this recipe goes is you just kind of layer the peanut butter pudding with the watered down jelly it really isn't watered down that much I'm going to be surprised if we don't end up needing more of the jelly you know oh yeah how many parfaits is this supposed to make well it's supposed to make four I thought there's no way it's going to make four in these big parfait glasses but they're kind of narrow okay so I would agree looking at it we'll give it a try and I'm gonna start chopping some peanuts because that is fancy for a garnish yes well I wonder if you did that when you were six I'm probably not chopping them with a large you know chef knife like you are now right maybe we just left off the chopped peanuts and that's why the parfait wasn't as good I think we figured it out for sure I think we have yeah and of course you have to top it in the 1970s with good old Cool Whip oh because it's the best oh yeah so how many tablespoons of peanut butter have you put in it said two to three I went with three it's already in yes ooh this is exciting so I guess we can start building our parfaits how about you put the pudding in and then I'll drizzle the jelly on the top and then you put more pudding and we can kind of do two of them at the same time all right and according to the picture it is three layers of pudding and two layers of jelly okay perfect let's try this so peanut butter as I've discussed one of my faves I like to eat it multiple ways I like celery oh yeah celery you used to uh you do something with your son right oh yeah celery with peanut butter and raisins ah it's called ants on a log where have you been you lost me at the ants but yes so on celery delicious my husband loves to melt it and then put it over ice cream oh gosh that's interesting I bet that's yummers yes I always know he's done it because I find them in the bowl yeah with melted peanut butter stuck to it personally one of my very favorites is a peanut sauce oh like a pad thai kind of thing oh yes I love to dip um the spring rolls that are just made with the rice paper and then you dip that in a peanut sauce ooh yeah I love peanut sauce oh my gosh so as I was coming up with some other ideas because you know what else do people like to eat peanut butter on um The Rock uh every Sunday The Rock I love The Rock posts on Instagram his cheat day meal and it always starts with what looks to be I don't ever read the words um but it looks to be uh like French toast and then he slathers it in peanut butter ooh good protein so I'm sure that's why he does it yeah so The Rock likes that but there's a fashionable peanut butter choices oh really Elvis oh that's right that's right that was a thing he had it at a restaurant and it is called Fool's Gold loaf really yeah and I always heard it as peanut butter and banana which is not disgusting to me oh no it included bacon oh oh that's gross but let me tell you a story girl okay it's clearly not a good story as evidenced by the sound of horror in your voice so the first time I met my in-laws they had us over for lunch nice yes and lunch was beautifully cooked fresh corn on the cob you know we're from Ohio so good sweet corn it was delicious and then they had special sandwiches okay and the sandwiches were peanut butter mayonnaise and a slice of tomato what yeah ooh what'd you think it was not my favorite because I'm not a big fan of raw tomato you know I can have it in some things I can have it on a BLT but then in my mind I'm thinking of the squishy mayo and peanut butter is not supposed to be savory really you know yes it is but right and I was like oh no not my favorite but of course I ate every bite well yeah and told them how delicious it was that's right and so is that just a family it is it's a family thing and another thing his family did with peanut butter okay his dad used to take a slice of bread slather peanut butter on it and put it at the bottom of this bowl of chili oh wait wait wait

that was way worse than the first one I don't know what yeah yeah bread bread with peanut butter at the bottom of his bowl of chili yeah I realized this is a podcast and I need to say things but I don't even know what to say I'm thinking you know people eat chili on obviously spaghetti Cincinnati chili yeah yep uh baked potato right right what all kinds of things yeah in their chili I even I have heard of people putting a scoop in the chili yes and putting a scoop of peanut butter in the chili to kind of give it flavor thicken it yeah I've heard that too so I mean it's kind of the same thing and then you put crackers in your chili it's just different I've never tried it but it was a family thing so they have unusual ways of eating peanut butter in his family yes they do wow well so as I was looking up ways to eat peanut butter there were a couple others that caused me concern and this kind of goes along with the chili somebody had written that it is delicious on meat and that they have never found a meat that they did not find it delicious on including like beef and pork and chicken and fish oh wow it seems so heavy it does on a fish  but you know when I cook some varieties of Asian foods peanut sauces the Satay well true but it's not I mean it has other flavors it's thin that's true it would have soy sauce in it maybe some fish sauce in it but just slathering peanut butter on a steak yeah here's the one I hated the most oh no on scrambled eggs wild if you guys have any interesting uses of peanut butter in your family please let us know you can just go right to our website you can leave us a voice message you can even just leave us a message and it will email right to us we want to hear absolutely Kristen mentioned the voice message our website there's a little button on there and you can just record yourself and um if if at all possible and if we can figure out the Magics of Technology we may feature you on our show we'd certainly love to share with others absolutely we would you know what what we hear from you guys yeah so we have made two parfaits they are looking pretty good oh they're pretty I think on the side yeah they look pretty darn good I'm gonna go for two more because it turns out they were not lying no you can actually get four servings out of this we have one more layer of pudding to put in this parfait and then we're ready for the whipped cream but Carrie yes back in July 1976 correct it was a pretty special time in American history hmm I'm thinking it has something to do with the 76 part of that year yes indeed if I recall my American history and that which I have learned from listening to the songs and watching the Disney plus special of Alexander Hamilton I believe that we have uh gosh how many centennials the bicentennial the bicentennial oh yeah taking this dish because peanut butter is American probably not oh I just like peanut butter and jelly and you were six and I was six but yeah so Bicentennial and for some reason that made me think of wallpaper on our bathroom wall as kids were Revolutionary War soldiers do you remember that I do and they weren't cute or cutesy in any way cartoony it was like grown-up wallpaper yup and one time I don't know how I figured this out oh I know where you're going with this oh this was not one of the better moments of our childhood it was not okay so I took one of dad's favorite felt tip pens he loved to write with felt tip pens for some reason I took this felt tip and wrote on that wallpaper I don't know why what were you thinking I do not know and then I got under the sink in a panic and found some bathroom cleaning spray sprayed it on the wallpaper wiped it off and the pen came off it was like a giant erase board it was and it was so cool that I continued to do it and if I recall correctly you chose the section clearly you knew that if you got caught you were going to be in deep doo doo oh yeah because you chose the section of wallpaper behind the door I did I did right and so I kept doing it because wow check this out check this out this is so cool so it ran and got you Carrie check this out check this out try it here's the pen write your name yes

so  Carrie oh do you hear the bitterness in Carrie's voice so Carrie takes the pen writes her name we go to spray it down and it doesn't come off because the wallpaper was so saturated with the cleaning spray because in perfect kid logic yeah you would just continue to write in the exact same so I mean you have an entire bathroom of wallpaper that wall is wallpapered ceiling to floor but we wrote in the exact same spot I say we it was you I did it once and she was the one who got caught

I don't remember how that ended I don't either I think we don't remember because I don't think we got in trouble because if I recall correctly Mom hated that wallpaper but they had to redo so much when they moved into that house that it just it it never got redone and so this was the perfect opportunity to redo that bathroom with that ugly old wallpaper that she hated that's hilarious yep all right it's time for the Cool Whip Cool Whip it actually says to go ahead and garnish with whipped topping and chopped peanuts if desired and then chill oh we desire oh we desire yes yes indeed so Carrie I think is the queen of the making the swirl yeah okay so this is what you do folks you take your brand new jar of Cool Whip and you mix it all up okay that's the key and then once you do that you just take a nice little ccoopy of it and it'll just dollop beautifully for you uh because it just it wants to dollop he wants it to do what you want it to do and I will sprinkle on these chopped peanuts I made while we were chatting all righty okay well Carrie I was listening to some of the top songs in 1976 Don't Go Breaking My Heart oh yes that's a good one and one of my friends Cheryl's favorite shake shake shake shake shake shake shake your booty shake your booty very nice there's one more is there Billy Joel no but Carrie there's Disco Duck shut up I thought it was just made up no no it was Rick Dees who used to be a DJ Rick Dees and his cast of idiots oh how funny I thought it was like a child's album oh no with just songs that they thought you know a kid would like I had no idea no it was very adult based how on Earth did I end up with a Disco Duck album so I've taken some pictures of our ready to go into the fridge yeah peanut butter parfaits let's get them in to chill and we'll be right back with you guys for a taste test [Music] oh

the parfaits are thoroughly chilled and they turned out great they're super cute I can't wait to try it but you know thinking about these parfaits and being six and you were three I was thinking about what we've been doing at our aunt and uncle's house in Texas and Saturday morning of course we would have been watching cartoons right because yeah when you're that age you get up at the crack of dawn and your parents do not also want to get up oh no no so you get up at the crack of dawn and you watch TV until early afternoon they get up oh yeah sure I like that our parents didn't get up until early afternoon no no but they would have gotten up and we would have continued watching cartoons that's true way to make our parents sound super lazy slackers okay so I bet you can guess some of the most popular not only cartoons but there were a lot of live action kid shows out at that time but can you guess what one of the ones we would have watched then would have been I would go Bugs Bunny yep The Bugs Bunny Roadrunner show yep yep okay some other cool ones Woody Woodpecker oh sure yeah Pink Panther and then one of my favorites Land of the Lost I don't recall that at all really oh it was a live action right not a cartoon it was yeah and it had sleestaks on it they were scary oh yeah and then they had Chaka who was this little Bigfoot looking Critter but he was small Chaka was very small but he looked like a Yeti wow no no well do you remember Shazam and the almighty Isis I know that you loved almighty Isis oh I did and I know Shazam because Zachary Levi is Shazam the remake in the movie right yeah and this one I did not remember but my husband talks of it fondly and that was electra woman and Dyna girl oh yeah no no recollection that's not even names that ring  a bell isn't that sad yeah I do remember Saturday mornings as I got much older watching roller derby did you really oh I loved it wow loved it and it used to tickle dad something fierce because his mom used to call you her little Roller Derby Queen that's right makes me cry that's a little baby cause I peddled my feet like that maybe who knows because you'd run into other people and knock them down oh maybe I don't know roller derby is cool roller derby is cool it's kind of making a resurgence I've seen roller derby here locally we've gone and watched really how fun it is I highly recommend it it's um it's violent unnecessarily violent and quite fantastic oh yeah okay well shall we get tasting I think enough of this jibber jabber let's eat some peanut butter jelly parfait enough Jabber Jawing that was another one of the cartoons Jabber Jaw

okay do you want to go first no this is your childhood memory that's right I'm so excited to try this as an adult okay so I'm gonna get down into the jelly part I'm gonna get a little peanut butter a little jelly a little whipped cream and a few chopped peanuts okay all right here we go she has the perfect spoonful and while she takes the bite I am going to get my perfect spoonful prepared so she can tell you she's laughing and shaking her head ooh it is so so sweet I can see why the parents did not love this it's not bad no it's just not good it's okay if you were a parent in the 70s watching your weight I wouldn't waste my calories on this would you no but I can see a kid would really enjoy this I think a kid would love it it is kids sweet oh very sweet it is absolutely kid flavors very bland you know other than the super sweet you can really taste the peanut butter and the jelly is just enough if you had more jelly this would like rot your teeth instantly which a kid would love oh yeah I can see how a kid would love it I can see how a parent would not but you know what if I was being polite to a kid I'd eat the whole thing oh yeah I mean it's not inedible by any stretch I'm going in for one more bite here ooh well look at her go I feel compelled to also take one more bite just to really let you guys know I don't know if it is because I haven't been eating a lot of sweets but it is oh no I've been eating tons of sweets and it's still too sweet oh yeah it almost makes my teeth hurt here's a fun fact about peanut butter what it's an American invention it was invented by one of the Kellogg Brothers you know who make Kellogg's cereal yeah invented to feed patients in his sanatorium what the heck peanut butter I thought it was George Washington Carver who invented it no no he helped with peanuts and then the processing of peanuts oh but nobody thought to mush them into peanut butter butter for decades and the Kellogg dude mushed them okay into this peanut butter and it was like in I don't know I'm gonna say like in the late 1800s it didn't really take off until a they came up with a process to kind of get it all mixed together better oh yes and they started adding sugar oh and then it really started and then the World War II happened and there was no meat and people desperate for protein right went for peanut butter but they think that part of it was this addition of all the sugar that made people really like it of course it's probably packed full of sugar I'm sure it is and so do you remember as a kid encountering peanut butter that had not been emulsified yes before and you dig in there's all that oil on the top and if you're a kid stirring that it is everywhere I'm an adult and I can hardly do it because that peanut butter is like hard as a rock under there it is and always what happens in my house is we have super greasy peanut butter for I don't know half and really hard peanut butter at the bottom yes for the bottom half oh yeah so I think if you are planning a party that is child heavy yeah this is a winner oh they would love yes yeah it's a kid food 100% it really is and so kid me wants to sing you out of this episode oh boy um hum with the I know I know wait a minute with one of the most popular songs of 1976 no then this is not the song that I thought you were gonna sing let me sing you out okay to one of the most popular songs from 1976 okay you ready yes s-a-t-u-r-d-a-y nice s-a-t-u-r-d-a-y night I danced with my baby on Saturday night oh Saturday night oh Saturday night

I loved the Bay City Rollers oh I remember you had their album oh I did and their Patchwork quilt pants because how cool was that who didn't want patchwork quilt right I thought you were gonna sing peanut peanut butter and jelly peanut peanut butter and jelly

well on that note that's it for this episode thank you so much for joining us please check out our website for lots of goodies we have pictures there of this delicious treat and Carrie has written an accompanying blog that is sure to give you a few laughs

[Music] thanks for listening to Mom's wooden spoon if you like what you heard don't forget to subscribe if you want a copy of this recipe or to check out our blog click on the link to our website in the podcast description if you'd rather you could get to our website through Facebook Twitter or Instagram pick your poison don't say poison we're making food