42 Pounds and a Good Friend

  Every year, my husband drives to Alabama to purchase 100 pounds of pecans.  These are in-shell but cracked.  We give a good many of the pecans as gifts to friends and coworkers but the remainder is mine to do with as I see fit.  Since I bake a lot, the nuts come in mighty handy!  This year, "mine" came out to be just about 42 pounds.  That is a lot of pecans to shell by yourself!  Thank goodness, my good friend came to help.  Darlene had gotten ten pounds of pecans so we shelled hers first then set to work on the ones that I was to keep. She has been doing this for the past couple of years and it sure saves me a lot of work.  Shelling 42 pounds of pecans by yourself is a tedious task.  With her here, we did it in a record time of about 3 hours!!  Of course, in that 3 hours we also took a couple of coffee breaks (Well, I did. She had lemonade.), did a lot of talking and an equal amount of laughing.  The time flew by and we were almost sad to see the box get empty.

  After shelling that many pecans, it is only natural for me to bake.  Son put in a request for the Pecan Tassies (recipe included in "Cooking on the Bayou" page on this blog) so...Pecan Tassies it was.  This is the second batch of these tasty treats that I have made this season.  He loves them, as does just about everyone who tastes the treats.  Since Darlene had helped with the pecan shelling and baking, she took a good many tassies home with her.  Her son loves them just about as much as mine does.  The rest of the pecans were air-dried, bagged and stuck in the freezer for future baking.

  Pecans are one of those so-called "super" foods that can lead to a healthier body.  With their high protein and "good" fats, they are a great alternative to meat.  Personally, since I am a pesco-vegetarian, I am always on the lookout for meat substitutes.   Meat seems to not agree with me in so many ways physically, that I have totally given up trying to eat it.  (Seafood is a different story, though!)  Eating tree nuts provides a tasty alternative.  These pecans are my healthy choice! (As long as I do not eat too many tassies!)