Yes, peanut butter enhances a wide variety of savory dishes

MOf course. The choice in peanut butter for these recipes is yours. I used natural peanut butter — the kind that must be stirred upon first opening the jar — not the homogenized type. The more popular peanut butters are sweet, and I wanted my dishes to be completely savory.

I began with hummus, despite loud protests from the peanut (butter) gallery insisting that true hummus can be made only with tahini.

Tahini is made of crushed sesame seeds. Peanut butter is made of crushed peanuts. The flavors are different but complementary — so complementary that hummus made with peanut butter tastes equally great as hummus made with tahini. A bit of garlic, a hint of cumin and a healthy dose of lemon juice push the dish over the top.

My next dish took the peanut back to its roots, so to speak. Although peanuts are apparently native to South America, they are closely related to the Bambara groundnut of West Africa. So they seemed a natural fit for an African Sweet Potato-Peanut Stew.

The hearty vegetarian stew masterfully blends the flavors of sweet potatoes, peanut butter and chickpeas, also called garbanzo beans. These ingredients — along with cumin and cinnamon and a bit of cayenne pepper for heat — are lightly simmered together for hours in a slow cooker.

At the end, green beans are added — an ideal fresh