The July 2010 Daring Cooks' Challenge was hosted by Margie of "More Please" and Natashya of "Living in the Kitchen with Puppies". They chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make their own nut butter from scratch, and use the nut butter in a recipe. Their sources include 'Better with Nut Butter' by Cooking Light Magazine, Asian Noodles by Nina Simonds, and Food Network online.
I chose to try the **Walnut & white bean dip w/ Rosemary & Sage, the **Chicken with Pecan cream & mushroom sauce, and the Asian Noodle-shrimp with Peanut sauce.
** These two recipes will be Linked at the end of this post.
I'm so glad to have had the opportunity to learn about nut butters. The most common nut butter we all know is peanut butter. Making your own is so much better then buying. I can't wait to make traditional Italian pignoli cookies at Christmas with my own almond butter too, now that I know how easy it is!! For more information on Nut Butters and how to make them & what they're used for, go here :
The first Project was the dip. I started with the walnut butter then added the rest of the
ingredients as demonstrated in the following photo.
The Dip was a hit with my family. The finished product is pictured below. I would certainly make this for a party again!
Next is the Chicken with the pecan cream & mushroom sauce. Pecans are my favorite so I was looking forward to this one.The picture below shows the bowl with the pecan butter and the rest of the prep for making the dish.
This following picture is the finished dish. I was disappointed that it was rather bland. One tip: it calls for being served over egg noodles. I ate it that way- MUCH BETTER then served over rice like my husband wanted it. I'm not sure why that made a difference but, it did. 
The Asian dish of shrimp with peanut sauce was definitely outside our comfort zone. This seemed really simple to make but did not go well with the family. The picture below is the peanut sauce.
The picture below here is the finished dish. It looks yummy but no one liked it except me. I think maybe it would have been better to try with chicken and ease my husband into it...lol. He is not a big peanut butter fan as it is but he could not stand the combination with shrimp.
Maybe one of you will have better luck then I did..... I think, however, I will revisit this with my good friend who is known for his Asian cooking.....
I'm glad again for the experience and all the work that goes into arranging these challenges. Make sure to check out The Daring Kitchen as well !!WHITE BEAN DIP with Rosemary & sage from "Cooking Light"- but link led to (myrecipes.com):
CHICKEN with Pecan cream & mushrooms adapted from "Cooking Light":
Asian Cashew Dressing ( I used peanut) adapted from "Chinese Peanut Dressing" pg 22 in Asian Noodles by Nina Simonds
