Sugar-and-Spice Candied Pecans

A friend of mine brought these to our Sunday school party, and I had to ask for the recipe.  These taste like candy (I'm not particularly a pecan fan, and I loved these!)... they are inCREDible!  Such a great Christmas dessert, and they go great with hot chocolate!

Sugar-and-Spice Candied Pecans 

½ cup light brown sugar
1/4 cup white granulated sugar
1/8 teaspoon kosher salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

2 Tablespoons melted, salted butter
1 ½ cups pecan halves
1 egg white, room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Mix sugars, salt, and cinnamon, making sure mixture is well blended and there are no lumps; set aside. Pour melted butter over pecans and toss to cover all the pecans. Beat egg white and vanilla until frothy but not stiff. Add pecans, and stir to coat evenly. Sprinkle nuts with sugar mixture, and toss until evenly coated. Spread sugared nuts in a single layer on a cookie sheet fitted with parchment paper (I used Silpat). Bake for 30 minutes, removing from oven every 10 minutes to stir and return promptly to oven. You will do two good stirs…completely turning and rotating all the pecans. Don’t skip this step!

Remove from oven, and separate nuts as they cool. When completely cool, use a metal spatula to scoop the nuts into a bowl, breaking up any that stick together.

Pumpkin Muffins (or cupcakes) - GREAT for Weight Watchers!

These muffins are SO easy and so tasty.

In a bowl, dump in:

• 4 egg whites
• 1 yellow cake dry mix
• 1  29 & 1/2 ounce can of pumpkin
• and as much pumpkin pie-style spices as you want (cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves).  I usually shoot for around a tsp of these total, with about 1/2 of that being cinnamon, and only a small pinch of cloves.  The muffins also taste good without the spices, if you don't have them on hand.

Bake according to the muffin directions on the cake box.  

Yields 24 muffins (or 48 mini-muffins).  

For those following Weight Watchers, each muffin is 2 Points Plus, and each mini-muffin is 1 Point Plus.  Also, if you eat 2 normal-sized muffins, that counts as 1 fruit/veggie serving.  ENJOY!

Sweet Potato Casserole

(for future reference)

Sweet Potato Casserole3 lg. sweet potatoes
1/2 stick butter, melted
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup milk
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. vanilla
2 eggs, beaten

Topping:
1 cup light brown sugar
1 cup chopped pecans or oats
1/3 cup flour
1/3 cup butter, melted

Remove skins and ends of potatoes. Chop into appropriate pieces and boil 'til tender. Whip with electric beaters. Add butter and sugar to warm potatoes and continue mixing. Add milk, vanilla, and eggs. Mix well. Put in a buttered casserole dish (about 8 X 12".) Mix topping ingredients and crumble on top of casserole. Bake 25-30 min. at 350 degrees. Serves 8-10.