Christmas Treats

Since I'm redoing my living room and kitchen this year, our house is not very warm and cozy and lacks the Christmas spirit.  I'm a little bummed about it, but I know next year it will be even better for our cocktail party!  This weekend I decided I needed to do something around the house to make it seem more cozy and inviting so I decided to make some Christmas treats for our neighbors, mail lady, and my hair girl, all of whom I owe big thank you's to this year and always!  This was the perfect way to spend the day, as it made the house smell of the holidays with the cinnamon floating in the air!

To give you an idea of how much this recipe makes, the above picture shows the 7 mini baggies I made for those special people.  I also had two other baggies I filled for my parents and my friend, Katie, who was busy baking for her neighbors and coworkers all weekend, too!

I saw a couple different recipes online, most for pecans and some different ingredients, but this is what I came up with, and I have to say, they turned out pretty darn good!

Ingredients

32 ounces of raw, unsalted almonds

3 cups sugar

3 cups brown sugar

6 Tbsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp salt

2 eggs

4 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup water

Directions

1.  Spray crockpot with butter spray very well, coating the entire pot and turn on low heat.

2.  In large mixing bowl, combine sugars, cinnamon and salt.  

3.  In crock pot, with a spoon, mix together the eggs and vanilla.  Add the almonds and coat with the mixture, stirring for a couple of minutes.

4.  Add the sugars and stir well to coat. 

5.  Every 20 minutes, stir the mixture for 2 hours.

6.  In two hours, add the water and stir well, continuing to stir nuts every 20 minutes for an additional hour.

7.  Spray baking sheets with butter spray.  Drop dollops of nut mixture on prepared baking sheet and allow to cool for a couple minutes.  When mixture is cool, place in airtight containers, or in my case, little baggies for neighbors, family and friends.  Try not to eat any…I dare you.  It will not happen…they are just too good!

Since you are home for a good couple hours, make sure you have something to do.  Baxter and I decided to wrap our gifts with Christmas music on in the background.  We had a great time…well, I think Bax did, too, that is until I put his Santa hat on him for a quick pic!  

 I used a twist tie to ensure freshness and then just tied some colorful ribbon around the bags.  I will add a card to each and deliver this week.  

ENJOY!!!