Time to make the pecans!

Happy New Year's Eve Day to all! Guess it's time for me to get going on my contribution for the Frostbite Regatta potluck tomorrow.

I always threaten to make spam musubi, but since we just got back from Texas yesterday I'm sticking with something simpler - sugared pecans. I wish I could've brought some genuine Texas pecans, but I didn't have a chance to track down a fancy food place in Huntsville that sold local nuts, and the ones my sister brought from her tree in Austin were to good to swipe from the family. They had pecans at the airport stores but they'd already been enrobed in caramel and chocolate! Ah well, the ones from the local deli will do. This is a great recipe, very simple, very yummy, easy easy cleanup, got it from my mom.

Bonnie's Mom's Pecans

Ingredients:
1 pound pecans
1 egg white
1 tblsp. water
1 cup sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt


Preheat oven to 270 degrees (fahrenheit, or 132 celsius for the rest of the planet)Beat egg white and water until frothy (don't bother with a mixer, a fork is fine). Add pecans, mix until coated. Mix sugar, salt & cinnamon in a brown bag (that's my mom's instructions - I used a produce bag tonight, I think the brown bag may absorb a little of the excess egg white but the produce bag worked OK too). Add pecans, shake 'til coated. Spread out on a cookie sheet (lining the cookie sheet with foil will seriously save cleanup time) and bake for 1 hour, stirring occasionally (I checked in on 'em every 15 minutes). Don't overcook or they will burn.

Naturally, it is highly recommended to sample some while they are still warm from the oven, you do want to make sure they are good enough to share with your friends or co-workers or whoever, right? If you make a pound there may even be a few left to give to those people after you have finished the preliminary sampling process.