Salted Pecans Recipe

This is my mother-in-law's recipe for salted pecans. I'm posting it here because, well, why not?
It's very simple, and I suppose you could use whatever nut you have in your neck of the woods instead of pecans.

Salted Pecans

Photo by futurestreet

• One pound pecan halves
• One stick ( 1/2 cup ) Land O Lakes salted butter
• Small amount of salt
• Preheat oven to 300 degrees

Cut up butter and put it on a cookie pan (approximately 12x16). Melt the butter in the oven while it is preheating.  Stir nuts in pan until completely covered in butter. Lightly salt.  Cut off oven and put nuts in and leave until the oven is completely cooled.  More salt can be added when the nuts are taken out.  If the nuts are too salty or have too much butter, shake them in a paper bag to remove the excess.

Halloween Apple Treat

I saw this clever healthy treat on Pinterest and thought it looked like something that a) I could probably make and b) my kids might actually eat.

Silly Apple Bites from Fork & Beans

This past weekend, I had to bring "a salad" to our parish Fall Festival. I thought apple slices would be easy and kid-friendly, and would give me a chance to try this out.

I think they turned out really well! I used peanut butter & store-bought eyes instead of the allergen-free items recommended in the original recipe. I also only made 3 because that made the plate look festive without taking too much fussy effort.

Shortcut Homemade Pumpkin Spice Latte

I am not ashamed of my love for the PSL. When the weather dips below 70º I'll drink one every day, given the chance. Since I work from home and am not made of money, I've learned to make my own.

The basic (no pun intended) PSL spice recipe is a 4:2:1 ratio of cinnamon to ginger to cloves. This is pretty easy to eyeball: I just sprinkle about the right amount in my hand, toss it in my mug, and add sugar. But first thing in the morning, even that can feel like too much work.

My favorite PSL recipe is more complicated. It's a paleo recipe, but I've found it works fine even with a lot of adjustments to the ingredients. Coconut oil & maple syrup are really delicious, but you can also use plain old milk & sugar. I wanted to be able to make this quickly and easily without searching for 5 different spice jars, so I put together my own spice blend by doubling the quantities in the recipe linked above. I added some sugar to make it easier to sprinkle.

Shake it up well, and you've got a ready-made PSL shortcut in your spice cabinet!

Now I have everything I need to enjoy my favorite coffee drink at home, even if I'm not fully awake yet!

My Attempt at No-Bake Cookie Bars

Right now, my kitchen looks like this:

I was invited to a cookie exchange this past weekend. I wanted to go, but baking was not an option, and I'm too honest to try & pass off goods from the Publix bakery as my own. So I scoured Pinterest for no-bake cookie recipes.

Most of them involved peanut butter, which I know is not universally beloved. Some of them also required too much actual kitchen equipment, despite the "no bake" moniker. I currently have access to a microwave, a toaster oven, a coffee maker, a wok, (all conveniently located in the dining room) and a refrigerator (pictured above). My "counter top" is one of the doors off our old kitchen cupboards sitting on the corner of the dining room table. So I needed a recipe that was dead simple.

Photo from Cookies and Cups

No-Bake Cookie Bars seemed to fit the bill. They were made of chocolate and Oreos and sweetened condensed milk. I could make them in the microwave and the fridge, and even if I screwed them up they would probably still taste good.

And they did taste good, even though I did screw them up. My boys had fun smashing the Oreos inside ziploc bags, first with their fists, then with the can of sweetened condensed milk, then with a rubber mallet my husband brought from the garage (It's not real baking unless tools are involved; just ask Alton Brown.).

The problem arose when it came time to stir the semi-sweet chips into the white chocolate-cookie-milk mixture. Even though I let it cool for over 5 minutes, it was still too warm and the chocolate chips melted. I tried to fold them in gently, but the mixture was tough and sticky and it was hard to incorporate the chips without letting them melt completely.

Of course, I made them only a couple of hours before the cookie exchange, so the cookies didn't have enough time to sit in the fridge and set. The ones in the middle were still a little gooey when I tried to cut them apart. If I were an organized sort of person, this probably wouldn't have been a problem. But then, if I were an organized sort of person, I would have baked and frozen three dozen cookies before we tore our kitchen apart.

My considerably less photogenic cookie bars, accented by festive greenery.

I wonder where I went wrong. Should I have used a food processor to crush the Oreos instead of children wielding mallets? Should I have mixed the ingredients in a glass bowl instead of aluminum? Did I add too much white chocolate? (I couldn't find the scale to measure 10oz. precisely, so I eyeballed it.) I may never know.

Oh well. At least they tasted good. And I was able to exchange them for two dozen other delicious cookies of every variety imaginable. Not bad for someone without a kitchen!

Veggie Tray Characters

Flush with success from my Elmo veggie tray experiment, I decided to try some different designs for my boys' class Halloween parties today. I probably should have looked at reference images and not just winged it, because now that I compare what I was going for to what I actually ended up with, this is starting to look more like one of those Cake Wrecks wedding posts (except that I'm not a professional, and nobody paid me or hired me to do these, thank goodness).

What I tried to make:

What I actually made:

What I tried to make:

What I actually made:

Slashdot Chai

Years ago while browsing Slashdot, I came across a recipe for chai in one of the comments. I'd never tried chai before (this was before Starbucks had infiltrated South Carolina), so I copied down the recipe and made it.

The recipe was imprecise, using measurements like "2/3 of a latte mug" instead of cups or milliliters. But the resulting chai was rich, spicy, and delicious. I adjusted the recipe to make it a touch less sweet and more tea-y and to have more familiar measurements, and now it is my favorite cold-weather beverage. Every other chai I've had since has paled in comparison.

I've also had good luck using Splenda, skim milk, and decaf tea with this recipe. It's very forgiving, so adjust it according to your tastes!

Slashdot Chai

Ingredients

3 c. water

2 cinnamon sticks

6 whole cloves

1/2 tsp. ground ginger

4 green cardamom pods

black pepper to taste

1/3 c. sugar

1 1/2 c. milk

3 black tea bags (or 1 tbsp. loose tea)

Directions

Pour water into a small sauce pan. Add spices and a few grinds of black pepper. Bring to a boil, then simmer over low heat, covered, for 10 minutes. Add sugar and milk, stir well, and return to a near-boil. Turn off heat. Now add black tea, cover, and steep for about 7 minutes. Strain and enjoy. Makes 4 cups (about 3 servings).

Tip: The original recipe said "strain into your latte mugs," but I like to
use a giant measuring bowl with a spout for straining the whole pot at
once. Unless you have a saucepan you can easily pour out of, this step
can get a little messy!