Sweet & Spicy Roasted Nuts

My Dad had two daughters. It never occurred to me growing up that he might have wanted a son instead, namely because he never acted like that was the case. In fact, it never occurred to me that my parents might have wanted anything but my sister Megan and I until recently, when my own friends started having kids.

“Obviously we’ll be happy either way, but we secretly hope it’s a boy/girl!”

That’s a totally normal thing to think, and- surely- my parents must have thought the same thing at some point? I decided to investigate further.

My mum, never one to be anything but completely direct, admitted to us that she was hoping for a boy. In fact, if it had been up to her, she would have had a whole litter of boys. But, she said, you’re what I got, and I couldn’t be happier.

Good answer, mum. When I asked my dad the same question he gave me quite a different answer, “At that point, I was still amazed I was having a child at all, I didn’t really stop to think what kind of child you would be.”

It makes a lot of sense that my dad would think this way, since my dad never really raised us as ‘girls’ or ‘boys,’ he raised us as, ‘little humans.’ We pooped and puked and cried, and then when we were old enough he taught us how to belch on command and tell fart jokes and curled our hair on picture day and gave our Barbies rides in our Tonka truck.

I don’t think this happened on purpose, it’s not like my dad set out with strong principals against stifling gender binary rules, he just… didn’t really think about it.

This is what you get with a set of hippie-cum-yuppie parents. My mum was of the follow-your-bliss school of parenting, strict safety and health guidelines and little other pushing. If we wanted to paint, we painted, if we wanted to run, we ran.

She got a lot of grief from judgmental mothers while I was in preschool. I insisted on wearing nothing but pink party dresses at the time (??) and the other parents would deride my mother for letting me show up to school in things like that. Her response? “She likes ’em. It’s not what I would have chosen, but if I saves me 20 minutes of power struggle in the morning, she could wear a pillow case for all I care.” Atta girl, Mum.

My dad? He was just trying to keep us alive and, if possible, not crying. (enter fart jokes)

I do have a rather meandering way of getting to the point, don’t I? Well, here it is…

These are some hot nuts. Hot, salty nuts.

HAAAAAA! Man, I still have my dad’s sense of humour (that is, the sense of humour of a 9 year old boy). Megan will appreciate this joke, too, no matter how cheap it is. My dad never got to miss having boys, we were all the crude humour he needed.

Chelsea wrote yesterday about the unbeatable combination that is salty and sweet. Ugh, soooo good. So… munchable! These roasted nuts are sweet, salty and spicy. Nuts, especially roasted nuts, are a classic umami flavour. Top it all with a splash of Tabasco, instead of using just straight cayenne, and it adds the smallest touch of sour as well, which means this easy snack hits all the bases on your tastebuds.

I mean… BOOM. Tastebuds.

We’re heading into that entertaining time of year as well, so these are well-timed. They make excellent small gifts, either jarred or poured into some cute seasonal bags. I also like serving them at parties. I put them in small bowls or martini glasses around the house and people can graze through a party.

A gift that doubles as a party snack that is also incredibly quick and easy? YES.

A couple small notes on the recipe…

Buy your nuts in bulk if you can, it will cut your costs considerably. I like to buy big bags of almonds at Costco since they really are a fraction of the regular grocery price.

Make sure your nuts cool completely (HA!) before breaking them apart (ouch?). Cooling will make them brittle and easy to break apart. If they are still warm, the sugar will more likely ‘pull,’ creating a stringier finished product.