Chipotle & Rosemary Nuts

I’m back for an Easter morning post. (Happy Easter to all!)

This was a recipe I tasted for the first time back during my Memphis visit with my friend Marissa (can you tell we ate a lot of delicious food?!? Marissa knows her stuff, let me tell you.)

This is an Ina Garten (the Barefoot Contessa) appetizer/snack recipe from her cookbook How Easy is That (one of my new favorite cookbooks. It’s awesome. Go buy it.). It went over very well for the visitors we had at the Vose house this weekend, and the whole amount is almost gone. You can also keep these in Tupperware to pull out for another event days down the road.

Ingredients:

• Vegetable oil
• 3 cups whole roasted unsalted cashews
• 2 cups whole walnut halves
• 2 cups whole pecan halves
• 1/2 cup whole almonds
• 1/3 cup pure maple syrup (I used a mixture of pure and store-bought syrup. Mom mixes up a concoction of both so you get the best of both worlds.)
• 1/4 cup light brown sugar, lightly packed
• 3 tablespoons freshly squeezed orange juice (Mine was not freshly squeezed – I used Simply Orange and it was tasty. Use whatever orange juice you have, but if you can do freshly squeezed – DO! 🙂  )
• 2 teaspoons ground chipotle powder (Took me a bit to locate this on the grocery store shelf as not all spice brands had it…but it’s worth the time of looking. This is the key ingredient.)
• 4 tablespoons minced fresh rosemary leaves, divided (Highly encourage fresh> dry)
• Kosher salt

How to Make:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Locate a nicely sized sheet pan and rub it down with vegetable oil. Or Pam would work too. Up to you.

Now time to mix some nuts! Mix up your cashews, walnuts, pecans, almonds…

Add in 2 Tbsp of vegetable oil, maple syrup, brown sugar, orange juice and chipotle powder. All of those items were added though there aren’t pictures of all steps below.

I encourage you to mix it up in a bowl as it’s a bit easier than Ina’s direction of mixing it up on the pan. But perhaps you possess greater “mixing abilities” and the pan would work for you. Toss everything around so all nuts are evenly coated in tasty goodness.

Now grab the rosemary and mix that it too. Ina suggests adding 2 Tbsp now and 2 Tbsp after cooking. I plain forgot this and added 4 Tbsp right up front. It may make a difference adding it after, it may not. Up to you and your personal preferences with rosemary. But I think adding it all in prior to the oven works just fine. Add in 2 tsp of salt as well and toss everything evenly.

Spread the nuts in one layer, as best you can. Roast them in the oven for about 25 minutes, pulling them out to mix things about 2-3 times during that time. You’ll know everything is done when the top is “glazed and golden brown” – according to Ina. Below is the halfway point.

Once the 25 minutes is up or the nuts look done, pull ’em out of the oven. Add in 2 more tsp of salt and (if you didn’t add all 4 Tbsp in prior to the oven…) the remaining 2 Tbsp of rosemary.

Toss everything so the salt and rosemary (if you added it after) are evenly coating all the nuts. It will be sticky due to the maple syrup and brown sugar, so you’ll want to continue to mix the nuts around as they cool to prevent as much of the sticking together as possible. They will naturally clump a bit, which is alright, but you don’t want the whole thing to be one, big, massive pile. Which is what it will become if you don’t get in there and fix the situation. Serious.

I used wax paper to let everything cool while spread out and at the same time, not causing more unnecessary mess to the pan or another surface.

Store in Tupperware and pull it out to astound your guests with your amazing cooking skills (they don’t need to know there are only a few steps and it’s extraordinarily simple to make)! Enjoy!

Tags: Chipotle, Mixed Nuts, Rosemary