Sugared Pecans

This pecan recipe comes with a WARNING! If you make these you will not be able to stop eating them. I'm serious. It's a curse... the recipe is haunted.

Mr.Perfect loves them hot out of the oven. Trouble loves to eat these instead of popcorn for movie night. Nana loves eating the little broken pieces because she likes to think they don't count. They do count, trust me! 

What you need:

• 1 egg white
• 1 tablespoon water
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 pound pecans
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon salt  

What you do:

1. Preheat oven to 250 degrees.
2. In a bowl, beat egg white, water, and vanilla until frothy. This should look like soapy water.
3. Stir in the pecans and coat evenly. 
4. Combine sugar, cinnamon and salt. Stir sugar mixture into pecans, coating pecans evenly. 
5. Spread pecans evenly on a cookie sheet. I like to line my cookie sheet with heavy duty aluminum foil.
6. Bake in preheated oven 1 hour, stirring every 15 minutes.  Remove from aluminum foil to cool. I place them on a sheet of wax paper. 

These make a great gift for the holidays or a perfect snack for New Years Eve.

Did you know the pecan tree is the state tree of Texas? Yes indeed!

Another fun fact: The 20th Governor of Texas, James Stephen Hogg, asked that a pecan tree be planted at his grave instead of a traditional headstone, requesting that nuts be distributed throughout the state. But he also named his daughter Ima Hogg so I'm thinking he may in fact have been a nut himself!