As I started gathering recipes for all the holiday dishes that I wanted to make this year, I noticed a slight trend. Everything I plan to make has a common ingredient. Not butter (although most everything has that too)…Pecans!
So far, my list includes:
Spiced Pecans
Baked Brie w/ Pecans, Jalapeños & Mayhaw Jelly
Church Window Cookies (recipe calls for chopped pecans)
Graham Crackers w/sugared pecans
My non-pecan items are Butter mints, Orange Jell-O Salad & Egg Pie. By the way, all of these items won’t be eaten at the same time…We’re having a Christmas Eve Pizza/Finger Food free-for-all, a Christmas mid-morning breakfast and then a later in the day lunch. Those lovely pecans up there were gifted to me last year by a sweet lady who had a tree in her yard…but I’m not a champion nutcracker so I opted for shelled this year. Speaking of Champion Nutcrackers…check out this video of my Pe-pa cracking hickory nuts on a huge rock at my family’s farm. Love him!
If you’ve never tasted hickory nut pie, you’re missing out big time! In my family, we think hickory nuts are way better than pecans, but they’re sort of hard to come by. And even if you have a tree, it takes a long time to crack enough to do anything with on a large scale.
Are you finding any common themes among your holiday recipes? Or are you finding yourself feeling a little bit nutty? Try not to stress…these next couple of days are going to fly by and if you’re stressed, you won’t enjoy them nearly as much!
