It's Beginning to Smell a lot like Christmas

Ahhh, the smell of cinnamon.  Nothing else makes me think more of Christmastime than that.  For a short time when Hubby and I were younger, we had a Dippin’ Dots franchise in a mall.  During the holiday season, the nut store would move in.  You know the nuts I’m talking about.  The ones you can smell for like 8 blocks.  Usually they sell cinnamon almonds, but I used to sit there all day smelling their nuts and would visit often.  That’s how I eventually figured out they made pecans too, just not as many or as often.  The almonds are pretty amazing, but the pecans… there are no words.  Now, I’m going to show you how to make them yourself at home.

Here’s what you’ll need: 

• 4 cups pecans
• 1 egg white
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 ½ cup sugar
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon salt 

Before you get started on anything else, go ahead and preheat your oven to 250° and line a sheet pan or a large roasting pan with parchment.  (Or you can just butter it if you don’t mind washing it when you’re done.  Next up, measure your sugar, cinnamon, and salt into a bowl. 

Whisk them together until everything is evenly distributed, then set it aside. 

In a large mixing bowl, combine your egg white and vanilla.

With your mixer (or a whisk if you prefer) beat until it’s nice and frothy. 

Add the pecans.

Stir thoroughly.  It’ll take a minute or two, but you want your nuts completely coated. 

Pour on the sugar mixture.

And stir some more.  All of the sugar should be moistened and the vast majority of it stuck to your nuts. 

Pour the pecans onto your prepared pan.

Spread them out so there’s basically a single layer.

Bake at 250° for 1 hour, stirring every 15 minutes.  When they’re done, they’ll be dry and no longer sticky. 

Allow them to cool just long enough that you won’t burn yourself and start devouring.  Wait, I mean, let them cool completely and store them in an airtight container.  (Yeah right)

What reminds you most of the holiday season?

All Natural Purple Frosting

Did you know you can buy purple sweet potatoes?  I didn’t.  I was actually looking for white ones, which my store didn’t have, but they did have purple ones.  Well, purple is my very favorite color, so I wasn’t about to pass up on those.  Not only did I make sweet potato crisp out of them for Thanksgiving, but the color was just too gorgeous not to use it for something else.  These are the sweet potatoes after being baked.  Seriously amazing, huh? 

I did some reading and discovered that baking them in something like cupcakes changes the color to a greenish hue.  Some sort of chemical reaction with the baking soda or something, I assume.  Buttercream was the answer, then.  For frosting, I needed to make sure the sweet potato was nice and smooth.  I only needed a couple of tablespoons, though, and really didn’t want to dirty the food processor for that.  Since I don’t have a food mill or ricer, I decided to just press the baked sweet potato through a fine mesh strainer.  It worked beautifully. 

I used my basic buttercream recipe.  Just add about 2 tablespoons of sweet potato before adding any cream, and adjust the consistency from there.  Who needs artificial colors when nature provides something so perfect already? 

What is your favorite color?