Snowball Cookies

In an attempt to find some more recipes that included pecans, I remembered that one of our favorite holiday baking recipes originally requires pecans.  I just never use them because my husband is allergic.  Today I decided to do a batch with pecans and one without.  They are so yummy and so easy to make.  Not very calorie friendly, but oh so good :)  Here is the recipe for snowball cookies.  My neighbor calls them wedding cookies.

Snowball Cookies

2 sticks butter
1/2 C powdered sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
2-1/4 C flour
3/4 C chopped pecans

Cream butter and sugar until fluffy.  Add vanilla.  Sift together flour and salt, add to butter mixture.  Add pecans.  Form into 1 inch balls.  Bake on ungreased cookie sheet at 400 degrees for about 10 minutes.  Watch the bottoms, these burn easily.  I pull them out when they almost start turning brown on bottom. 

While hot, roll in powdered sugar.  Let cool and roll again.

Happy Fall Ya'll!

Fall in Alabama means last week we pulled out the winter coats and boots and could not get warm.  We were drinking hot chocolate, we were making chili.  This week I am out in the yard in my shorts and flip flops and had to turn on the air!

We have been very busy picking pecans.  I wasn't going to sell any, but when I heard they were going for $1.30 a pound, I took 50 pounds.  The next day I took 59 pounds and they were up to $1.50 a pound!  So, we have still been picking ... and picking.  My body is ready for a break.  I am still keeping a bunch to shell and put up in the freezer. 

I had no idea there were different names for the pecans.  The ones I have been bringing to sell are called seedlings.  We found some tiny ones yesterday at our family farm (shown in the picture above).  They are about half the size of the seedlings, so we kept them separate and am going to ask tomorrow what they are called.  We also have a few trees that have 'Stewarts," which are the big fat pecans native to this area of south Alabama.  The pecan place has a big board with about 50 different pecans and their names.  I never knew there was so much to know about pecans.  The seedlings seem to be selling for the most, I am guessing because of their pretty brown nuts and very flavorful, almost maple taste.

In other news I am trying to work on my compost so I can put it on my raised beds to have them ready for spring.  I am looking into what else I should be doing to get them ready.  I have never done any of this before.  When I have had a garden, my husband just takes the tractor and fills it with dirt.  Usually it is awful red clay!

We are also having a haunted hayride down at our farm for the kids.  Lots of cousins are coming and we have a lot of work to do.  I also want to have caramel apples and hot chocolate after, so there are plans to be made.  Thank goodness my husband has the day off tomorrow.  He has a lot of honey dos :)

This post has been added to the Homestead Revival Barn Hop!

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Pecan Sandies

This past week I cooked some pecan sandies from a recipe I found on pinterest.  They turned out better than I had hoped.  When we first tasted them out of the oven, they didn't really taste like the real thing to me, but after they cooled down, they really did!  We brought some to my mom and a neighbor and they all loved them, so this is a recipe I will be keeping!

Speaking of pecans, we went down to our farm this weekend to ride 4-wheelers and pick some pecans.  We discovered some pecan trees in the middle of one of the pastures that had a ton of them, and they were the good ones too, the small sweet ones.  Well my husband came to pick me up in the truck and we drove around another tree looking to see how much was under it when we heard the dreaded hissing sound.  Not a snake, but a tire.  We discovered that an old metal post had broke off and was sticking up out of the ground where you could barely see it.  So our priceless afternoon at the farm turned into a $150 day at the farm.  Oh well, things happen!

Here is the pecan sandies recipe.  The only thing I changed was adding a couple more tablespoons of flour at the end because it looked still a little too moist.  And I didn't roll and press the cookies, I just dropped them by the spoonful and they turned out just fine!

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1/2 cup packed light-brown sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled)
• 1 cup pecans, coarsely chopped

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees, with racks in upper and lower thirds. In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy; beat in vanilla and salt. With mixer on low, gradually add flour, beating just until combined. Fold in pecans.
2. Roll dough into 1 1/2-inch balls, and place on two baking sheets, 2 inches apart. With the dampened bottom of a glass, lightly flatten each ball.
3. Bake until cookies are golden brown, 15 to 17 minutes, rotating sheets halfway through. Transfer to wire racks, and let cool.

Pecans!

We have 2 pecan trees in our yard and the nuts are finally starting to fall from the trees.  We haven't have a bunch fall yet, but I have been picking up a little bucket full each day so the job isn't so big when they really start dropping.  One of our trees has dropped almost all the leaves and is dropping several a day, while our other still has lots of green leaves and green hulls making the branches droop from the weight!  That tree has small, but very sweet and tasty pecans! 

I also picked up a bucketful at our family's farm this weekend.  We are planning a big haunted hayride and were cutting limbs.  There used to be a whole pecan orchard there, but now just a few trees remain.

And we have had to fight for these pecans!  There have been a couple of squirrels on our back tree steadily cracking open the not-yet ripe ones and throwing them down on the ground.  What a waste!

I get so mad at myself when I think about all the years I didn't use the pecans from our trees.  The trees don't make every year, but the years that they have, we have either sold the pecans or let other people pick them when we could have used them.  I already have several recipes tagged to try out with the pecans.  Plus my kids just love to eat them, way healthier than a bag of chips or something. 

I've also been adding the husks or bad nuts to my compost pile so that's a big plus as well.  I will have to post one of the recipes and results when we use one.