This is one of the appetizers people were eating around the holidays in 1984, thirty-one years ago. The recipe was featured in Bon Appetit as part of an elegant Thanksgiving menu. I haven’t made these in a very long time but decided to make them again for New Year’s Eve. They’re wonderful. The glaze is sweet with a bit of a spicy bite provided by the cayenne.

Happy New Year to you all. Thank you for reading Blue Cayenne.

Recipe: Glazed Spiced Nuts
1/3 C. sugar
1/4 C. unsalted butter
1/4 C. fresh orange juice
1 1/2 t. salt
1 1/4 t. gound cinnamon
1/4 t. cayenne pepper
1/4 t. ground mace
1 pound mixed unsalted nuts (such as pecans, walnuts, macadamia nuts, unblanched almonds, cashews)

Directions:
Heat sugar, butter, orange juice (I used clementine juice), salt, cinnamon, cayenne and mace in a large pan on the stove at low heat. Heat until butter and sugar melt, stirring often. Increase heat to medium and stir in nuts. Stir until nuts are thoroughly mixed with the sugar-butter-spice mixture.

Line a large cookie pan (one with sides) with aluminum foil and pour nut mixture into foil-lined pan. Spread the nuts so that they are on a single layer. Bake on the center rack in a preheated 250 degree F. oven for one hour. Stir nuts every fifteen minutes.

Remove from oven and pour nut mixture on a large sheet of foil and let nuts cool. Be sure to stir them with a fork to keep them from sticking together as they cool.

If you don’t eat these on the first day, they can be stored in an airtight container for up to five days. If they are sticky when you want to eat them, reheat at 250 degrees F. on a cookie sheet for 20 minutes or until crisp.

Cook’s Note: These nuts are wonderful stuffed in dates. They would be a great substitute for the plain walnuts called for in the “Best Dates in the Parade” recipe I posted recently. See the site category list.

Warm, fuzzy Norman Rockwell images of American family celebrations aside, my mother always served jellied cranberry sauce straight out of the can at holiday meals. If your mother did, too, the lines the can made on the sauce are no doubt indelibly imprinted upon your conscious memory.

I remember that we always carefully sliced the sauce and delivered it quivering onto our plates next to the candied sweet potatoes and the green jello.

I see that canned jellied cranberry sauce is still for sale in my local supermarket. I guess it still has a nostalgic mid-century Americana vibe at some Thanksgiving tables. You know. June Cleaver in the apron. Ward dithering in the background. Wally and the Beav, napkins tucked into their collars, punching each other in the upper arm while salivating at the prospect of an indulgent Thanksgiving meal complete with quivering jellied cranberry sauce and green jello.

This is my answer to the canned stuff. I’ve made this cranberry relish forever. Well, actually, I’ve made this since 1969. That is the date on the recipe pasted in my cookbook. The recipe is adapted from the original recipe from the Los Angeles Times.

You are on your own to find a substitute for the green jello…or not.

Recipe: Cranberry Relish

1 lb. cranberries
2 C. sugar
1 C. water
1  two-and-a-half inch stick of cinnamon
2 medium apples, pared and thinly sliced
Grated peel of 1 lemon
Grated peel of 2 tangerines
3 tangerines, peeled,separated into segments and seeded

Directions:

Wash and drain cranberries. In a heavy saucepan mix cranberries, sugar, water, cinnamon stick, apples, and grated peel of lemon and tangerines. Bring to a boil while stirring occasionally. Reduce heat and simmer for 5-7 minutes. Cranberry skins should pop and apples should turn transparent. Cool and transfer mixture to a bowl. Stir in segmented tangerines. Chill thoroughly. Remove cinnamon stick before serving.

I’ve been making this soup for more than twenty years and it is still one of my favorites. Few things are more comforting than a steaming bowl of this lentil soup on a blustery cold day–like today, for example.

This is a pretty soup, too. Look at those beautiful chunks of carrot, celery, and tomato!  What is even better is that lentils also are good for us.  Rich in fiber and protein, lentils have the second highest ratio of protein to calories after soybeans.

There are many types and colors of lentils. This soup recipe introduced me to orange lentils and these delicate, fast-cooking lentils have become an important ingredient in my cooking ever since. Sometimes I just throw a handful of orange lentils into the soup pot with other vegetable soups. It gives the soups an extra boost of protein and flavor and thickens the broth.

Grown mostly in Turkey, India and Canada, lentils are the seed of a small shrub. Orange lentils, my personal favorite, have a mild flavor, don’t need to be soaked, cook up quickly (usually in an hour or less)  and are increasingly available in mainstream supermarkets. If you live near an Indian community as I do with Little India in Artesia, you can buy large bags of beautiful orange lentils at a very reasonable price. On the other hand, many health food stores, like Huntington Beach’s Mother’s Market, carry organic orange lentils.

Don’t take my word for the greatness of lentils. People have been eating (and enjoying) lentils for a very long time. Food historian Harold McGee, in On Food and Cooking, writes that lentils are probably the world’s oldest cultivated legume with archeological digs finding evidence that the first lentils were consumed in Central Asia somewhere between 9,000 to 13,000 years ago. Throughout history, lentils have captured  the attention of cooks. Lentils have been discovered in Egyptian tombs. They were glorified by Greek playwright Aristophanes who labeled them “the sweetest of delicacies,” and their unadorned consumption was mandated by the French Revolution’s  Robespierre who characterized their consumption as an act of patriotism. (By the way, Robespierre got a whole lot of stuff wrong and lost his head in the process. Don’t let his churlish dictates cause you to pass up the opportunity to prepare lentils with a glorious abundance of spice and an array of complementary ingredients.)

I can’t credit the original source of this recipe. All I have is a hand-written recipe in my cooking notebook with an enthusiastic notation: “This is excellent!” I do remember that the original recipe did not contain tomatoes, but, over the years, I’ve become very fond of this soup with the addition of diced tomatoes.

Recipe: Egyptian Lentil Soup

4 T. butter or olive oil

1 large onion, chopped

2 stalks celery (with leafy tops), chopped

2 carrots, chopped

1 t. whole cumin seeds

1 1/2 C. orange lentils

8 C. water or vegetable broth

1 15 oz. can of diced tomatoes (or equivalent of fresh tomatoes in season)

Salt and pepper to taste

Juice of 1/2 to 1 lemon

Directions:

Melt butter in a soup pot (or heat olive oil). Saute onion, celery and carrot until the vegetables begin to soften. Add 1 t. whole cumin to the vegetables as they saute. Add lentils, water or stock and diced tomatoes. Simmer covered for one to one and a half hours. Season with lemon, salt and pepper. Serve and enjoy. Garnish with chopped parsley or chopped cilantro.