Butter and Rosemary Roasted Walnuts

This morning, the sky is gray and there are snow flurries in the air. It is a bitterly cold day in New York City. It is the kind of day that begs you to stay under the covers with a cup of tea and a good book. I’m about to start The Lake of Dreams by Kid Edwards. What’s on your reading list?

I think we need something to smile about in this frigid weather. To keep my spirits up, I’ve made a list of things that make me smile, even on the coldest days:

-Our just-decorated Christmas tree

-Starbucks Gingerbread lattes

-Fireplaces

-Puppies in holiday sweaters

-Fuzzy purple slippers

-These rosemary and butter roasted walnuts



I’m sure my fellow New Yorkers will agree that it got depressingly cold over the weekend. So cold that I was forced to don wool socks on my hands when I couldn’t find my gloves (I had misplaced them. Again). It was an act of desperation, and necessity. After going to the grocery store with purple wool socks on my hands, I was in serious need of a pick-me-up. And a pair of gloves.

Sometimes you feel like a nut. Sometimes, when the weather drops to a blistering thirty degrees, you feel like a fancy nut. Enter the rosemary and butter roasted walnut. When friends are coming over on a Saturday afternoon and you want to make something delicious and different in a pinch, it’s good to have a recipe like this handy; one that dresses up something simple and takes it to another level. These roasted walnuts are simple and special at the same time. Like dandelions growing out of concrete sidewalks, or handwritten thank-you notes.



There is a surprising amount of complexity happening in these nuts: rosemary brings out their earthiness, butter provides a sweet, decadent flavor, and a dose of cayenne pepper adds unexpected heat. I scraped the leftover bits from the pan, trying to get every ounce of tastiness that I could. These salty, spicy, sweet walnuts kept my winter blues at bay, and even made me feel better about wearing wool socks on my hands. There's nothing nutty about a recipe like that.


Butter and Rosemary Roasted Walnuts

Ingredients
2 C walnut halves
2 1/2 Tbs unsalted butter
2 tsp dried rosemary, crushed
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Put butter in baking dish, and melt in oven (3 to 5 minutes). Remove baking dish from oven, and place walnuts in the dish, coating evenly with melted butter. Add rosemary, cayenne and salt, and mix. Roast in oven for ten minutes. Serve warm.

These nuts keep for three days, but I prefer them straight out of the oven.