I am grateful for nuts.
Almonds, pecans, hazelnuts, walnuts, cashews, pistachios, macadamia, chestnuts and brazil nuts - have I missed any? The holiday season at our house always featured a bowl of mixed nuts in the shell - usually pecans, walnuts, hazelnuts (aka filberts) and almonds.
If we were lucky, Dad would share a pecan nutmeat he extracted from the shell whole with the precision of a watchmaker. When we tried ourselves, shards of shell would fly everywhere and we would sift through the debris to find edible bits. Almonds and hazelnuts were the only ones we had any chance of shelling whole.
I prefer nuts in the shell to shelled, roasted and salted mixed nuts. Shelling nuts is a more mindful exercise and the process slows consumption. Nuts are healthy but nutrient dense and it is too easy to eat shelled mixed nuts by the mitt full.
Chestnuts are a completely different nut - soft and starchy instead of crunchy. I plan to buy some chestnuts, grab a handful of sage leaves from the garden and make roasted chestnuts with sage and butter. I don't have access to an open fire so our Kenmore oven will have to do.
What are your favourite nuts?
Image by jacqueline macou from Pixabay