Candied Pecans with Rosemary and Spice

Hi, I'm Back!

I can''t believe it's been 9 months!!

It's been a busy year and there have been other things to focus on - like losing 18kg - but I'm back now and filled with enthusiasm!

I imagine my food has changed a little over the time I've been away. I'm certainly much more wary of sugar and fructose specifically, I've delved into the world of calorie counting for the first time ever though I'm backing away now,  I am dabbling in intermittent fasting for health benefits. I'm still almost vegetarian (Monday to Friday).   I'm sure more will come out about these things in coming posts. Also, just yesterday we bought a new fancy oven and I imagine that will change things!

Today I wanted to make something fairly simple so I could would have time get back into the swing of writing, photos and editing, find all the cables etc and still produce a post. But it still had to be delicious. And it HAD to use the oven :)

I had a big bag of pecans in the cupboard. Two years ago on a visit to California we had a snack mix that was candied pecans with rosemary and dried cranberries. The memory of how good that match was has stayed with me. Pecans and cranberries aren't used widely in Australia so I've never seen anything similar here. So this afternoon I found some recipes and modified them a little to come up with this fructose-free version.

Ingredients
2 1/2 cups (275g) pecans, halved
1/4 cup (80g) rice malt syrup (you could use honey)
1 tspn salt 
1 tspn smoky paprika
1/2 tspn ground allspice
2 tspn chopped fresh rosemary 


Method

• Preheat Oven to 180C (350)F.
• Line a baking sheet with baking paper.



after baking



before baking

• In a bowl toss all ingredients together, then spread in a single layer on the prepared tray.

• Bake the pecans for about 10 minutes until golden brown and fragrant.
• Cool to crisp, before breaking up and putting in an airtight jar. 

Notes:
Recipes suggest this will last a few days in the cupboard and a week or so in the fridge - I think they'll be long gone before we get to test that . 
I know it would taste great with dried cranberries too. (but I steer away from dried fruit nowadays)

Nicola

"Raw" Chocolate Nut Balls

My favourite aunt has a lot of allergy issues and has adopted a largely raw food diet to help her sleep and feel OK. I have had some delicious things at her place, but had never made any myself until this week. She heard I was doing sugar-free September and gave me one of her "chocolates" to try. These are her treat to replace the commercial chocolate she can no longer eat. It was delicious. I took the recipe to make my own batch to help me through the month. Finding all the ingredients in suburbia was the trickiest part - but making them was easy. They are certainly helping with the after dinner cuppa which has always been accompanied by a small sweet treat. I'm sure I'll make them again after September finishes!

Raw Chocolate Nut Balls

Ingredients
300g raw cashews
85g raw almonds
30g  walnuts
30g raw sunflower seeds
4 Tbs golden flax seeds, ground
400g dates, pitted
60g raw unsweetened cacao (or unsweetened dutch cocoa if you can't get it)
2 tsp vanilla

Method
Place nuts, sunflower seeds and ground flax seeds in food processor.
Mix well to finely chop the nuts and seeds.
Then add the dates gradually.
Then add cocoa and vanilla and process until well mixed.
Form into bite sized balls

Makes approx 50.