My Husband's Nuts

That title is per his request.

Paul has been sitting at our dining room table shelling pecans for at least an hour.  He shows no signs of slowing down or stopping.  Every once in a while I'll hear, "This is a beautiful pecan.  Just perfect.  Look at this one.  I think I'll have to eat it.  Ack!  This one pinched me back.  I think I'll have to eat it.  Oh, this one's rotten.  That's probably why it pinched me."

Photo credit:  Josephine Losavio

Two days ago I made Rocky Road Brownies -- from scratch -- for our house guests using a recipe from a blog called Our Family Eats.  This morning, as Paul and I were fighting over the last one, I told him that I would make another batch if he would go out into our yard to gather pecans.  I really just needed half of a cup.  Our neighbors on two sides of us have pecan trees, and tons of pecans fall in our yard each fall.  I happened to have pecans (from the store), but I tapped into my stash the other day and I need what we have for my Holiday Sweet Potatoes for Thanksgiving.  And I really don't want to go back to the store.  Except...I do need butter, in the event that any of our Thanksgiving guests wants to butter their bread.  And if we're going to have cranberry sauce I'll need to buy oranges.  And we really don't have non-Thanksgiving food for this week...so I guess I'll be going to the store anyway. 

Paul's Nuts

These Rocky Road Brownies from Our Family Eats are divine.  I had initially disregarded the recipe because it calls for using a double-boiler, which I don't have, and seemed too complicated in general.  In fact, a make-shift double boiler was no problem to rig and this recipe consists of nine basic ingredients:  butter, chocolate chips, sugar, brown sugar, salt, eggs, flour, marshmallows, and nuts.  The recipe calls for semi-sweet chocolate chips, but I used dark-chocolate chips because dark chocolate is good for you, right?  Other than that I followed the instructions and my brownies came out perfect.

My make-shift double boiler

I've finished baking the brownies, but Paul is still shelling his pecans.  And he's talking about going back into the yard to pick up more nuts.  What will we do with all of these nuts?