Thursday, February 7, 2013

Pretty Pecans

It's been really busy around here lately, but we have discovered one time-saver. Cracked pecans! I was told last year by the local farmer's coop that our pecans were too small for their cracking machine. They tried to run a few through and it just didn't work. So we gave up and cracked by hand. It is very labor intensive, messy, and a bit painful, so we had bags and bags of pecans that went to waste in the shop over the summer.

This fall, we've had another bountiful crop. I didn't want to pick up all those pecans if they were just going to go bad again, so I spent some time calling around. I found another feed store that has several machines that can handle a range of pecan sizes. So with a hopeful heart, I took in a few buckets to see what they could do. It worked! Eureka! Now I just need to collect recipes to use all these tasty pecans. If you have a dish that uses lots of nuts, please send it along. My deep freezer can only hold so many bags, and I've got to get cracking and consume some of these.

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We've been picking up buckets full like this everyday!

5 comments:

  1. That is awesome, what a great problem to have!

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  2. I don't have an actual recipe, but I had the most amazing cake (I think it was even unleavened) that substituted ground pecans for the flour. If you can find a place to get them ground (or if you have your own grinder) you could experiment with some pastry recipes!

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  3. Yes, a nice problem in deed!

    Charity, what a great idea! I hadn't heard of pecan meal before, but I've since found several recipes using it. Apparently it's a lovely low carb, no gluten substitute for flour. Jeff is salivating to try a pie recipe with pecan crust and sweet potato/maple syrup filling I found. I'd love to hear more about the cake you had, since I've not found anything quite like that yet.

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  4. I can't get the recipe for the one I had; it was from a little chocolate café in Plymouth (Chocaccino) and it's apparently their secret recipe, but a friend who was there with me found this recipe which looks similar and absolutely amazing (if not at all healthy!): http://www.yummly.com/recipe/external/Flourless-Chocolate-Hazelnut-Cake-I-Adore-Food_-200411

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  5. That recipe does sound great. I'll add it to the "can't wait to test" pile!

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