Spring in the Northwest makes me feel a little manic – each day has about 4 to 6 microweather reports – yesterday was overcast, then brilliantly sunny but still cold, dramatically pouring, drizzling, and then there was a full, stunning rainbow. It’s like an emotional rollercoaster. You feel upbeat because it’s sunny out and it starts your wheels turning about what kinds of things you could do on a day like this…and then by the time you get your mind around it – it’s raining again and it looks like the sun might never shine again. A little manic.
So I’ve been going back and forth between obsessively reading trilogies of books, cooking overly complicated dishes for dinner, painting the house weird colors and being terrified at the results… but mostly just making lots of lists.
One of the dietary changes that seems to have stuck after the cleanse is eating nuts. In the cleanse, of course it was raw nuts, and they tasted fabulous because they were one of the, y’know, five things that we could eat. However, everyone knows that roasted nuts taste better. But you could make this with raw nuts – just skip the roasting step. If you make your own nut mix, you get to put in only your favorites, and you know that they’re all fresh and not rancid and nasty. I always try to find the freshest possible nuts and then keep them in glass jars in the fridge, to avoid the rancid nasty.
Rosemary Nuts recipes
- 2 1/4 C raw nuts (my favs almonds/hazelnuts/walnuts/pecans)
- 1 Tbsp butter, melted (or just toss them in with the hot nuts to melt)
- 2 tsp each salt & brown sugar
- 2 Tbsp Rosemary – fresh & chopped as fine or as coarse as you like
- 1/2 tsp cayenne (I always use piment d’espelette instead)
Roast the nuts at 350˚ for about 10 minutes – but check them often. While they roast mix the rest of the stuff together, then take them out & toss it all together. Try to remember not to make these when you’re home alone, because the odds are greater that you will eat them all.
