How to gain seven pounds in seven days.

I have overcome my fear of working with dry active yeast. Normally, if I read a recipe and it mentions kneading and resting, I just throw it out. If I made bread, it was in the breadmaker. Then, my breadmaker bit the dust and instead of facing my fears head on, I just stopped making bread.

I was tricked into making bread under the guise that I was making cinnamon rolls. Turns out, the base of cinnamon rolls is bread. Huh.

After I finished my Christmas shopping in the Starbucks drive-thru, which I think is ingenious of them by the way, I baked. After the cinnamon rolls, I made Sara’s Sugar Roasted Pecans. Looks like I’ll be sticking to the elastic waist pants for another month. You know those nuts you always smell roasting in a kiosk at the mall? Well, I’d almost forgotten that smell, because I do 90% of my shopping on line and the other 10% in the drive-thru. While I roasted the pecans, I remembered. I stirred the nuts dutifully just like the girl at the mall, except I don’t have a nose ring or black fingernails. I have no social statement to make.

Anyway, if you have an hour and some pecans, you should make these. Sara, hope you don’t mind I’m sharing your recipe.

Sugar Roasted Pecans
1lb. Pecans
1 egg white
1 tbsp. water
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon (I used more)

Beat egg white and water together until frothy
Toss with Pecans
Mix Sugar, salt and cinnamon in a separate bowl
Add Pecan mixture and toss until coated
Spread on a Pam coated cookie sheet
Bake at 250 degrees for 1 hour, stir occasionally (just like the girl at the mall)

We’re on a two hour delay today because of the freezing drizzle that fell all night. I was grateful for the slow paced morning, but I know it’s going to bite me a little later. I was supposed to volunteer at school this morning, helping the kids with Christmas crafts. After that, I had a To Do List a mile long. I have a feeling I should just go ahead and run the list through the shredder now.