Travel Season and Candied Pecans!

Since most of the book fairs and festivals are in the spring and the fall, these are my busy travel seasons. In my last post, I shared about my time at the Southern Kentucky Book Festival and the authors and illustrators I spent time with. Then I came home to the every day business of taking Emily to her Terra Nova Testing, Children's Church, and taking myself to the dentist. That wasn't nearly as much fun as the book fair, especially since I have to go back after I return from this coming week's trip to the Hudson Children's Book Festival. I'm not looking forward to getting my last wisdom tooth pulled, but I am going to be brave.

In anticipation of my upcoming trip, I have been making candied pecans for my friends. They are super easy, but they do require turning every fifteen minutes for an hour. And they pack into Wilton pretzel bags beautifully. I'm looking forward to meeting friends at Hudson as well as making some new ones.  One of the new friends I hope to make is Beth Ferry, author of Stick and Stone. I reviewed this book a while back and it is seriously worth mentioning again. It is a beautiful story of friendship and sticking up for others.

I will most certainly tell you about all my friends including the new ones and all this year's new book offerings next week when I return. Meanwhile, I will leave you with the recipe for the pecans. Once you eat these, you will have to use unusual powers of self control to stop at just one serving. Yes, they are that good!

1 pound Pecans
1 egg white
1 TBS water
1 cup Sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 250 degrees. In a stand mixer, beat egg white and water until foamy. Add nuts and stir with a wooden spoon until evenly coated in egg mixture. In a small bowl mix together sugar, cinnamon, and salt. Pour over nuts and stir until evenly coated. Spread out on a large baking sheet. Place in oven and set time for fifteen minutes. When timer goes off, turn nuts with a metal spatula. Do this every fifteen minutes for an hour. Allow nuts to cool thoroughly before placing in an airtight container.

Well, that about wraps it up for this week. Join me next week for another exciting episode, same crazy time, same crazy channel. Also be sure to drop by and join the Literacy Musings Monday Blog Hop where you will find other great blogs, or my personal website, Fun With Aileen, where you will find more on reading, writing, and my very own early grade Fern Valley chapter book series and my Quack and Daisy picture book series. And finally, you can find me on twitter @AileenWStewart if you want an extremely brief glimpse into my days.