Crossword Genius

Favourite silly food (7)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

peanuts

I'm a little stuck... Click here to teach me more about this clue!

'favourite silly' is the definition.
Although both the answer and 'silly' are nouns, they are not in the same form of the noun.

'food' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'food' could be 'pea' (pea is a kind of food) and 'pea' is present in the answer.
The remaining letters 'nuts' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't understand.
This explanation may well be incorrect...

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for peanuts that I've seen before include "Very small amount of money" , "pittance" , "Snack food - comic strip with Snoopy and Charlie Brown" , "Paltry sum of money" , "Cartoon - giving a kind of butter" .)

I've seen this clue in the Sydney Morning Herald.
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