homemade gift, sriracha party nuts

Ouy, holiday cheer hangover, huh? Did you all have a nice holiday? I sure did. Vegetable casseroles & Swiss Colony petit fours & presents & homemade cinnamon bread & winter sangria & Big Moose Ale & family time. Just lovely.

The holidays aren't quite over yet because I want to tell you about the tasty holiday treats we made for gift-giving. Yes, in addition to the hundreds of Christmas cookies, we made a few savory and boozy edibles.

First up, these Sriracha Party Nuts. A few food swaps ago, I got the tastiest batch of sriracha spiced nuts ever from Jenna. With that as my inspiration, I searched high and low for a similar recipe. We found this video showcasing a recipe from The Sriracha Cookbook by Randy Clemens and decided to go with it. We made a double batch for Thanksgiving and was encouraged enough by their popularity to make a bunch of them for Christmas gifts.

Yeah, I never actually got a photo of them. Here are the delicious flaky sriracha-sugar crumbs that were left. Trust, these nuts were that good. They are only a little bit spicy (we'd like to kick them up more next time) with a sugary coating. In other words, they are incredibly addicting and awesome.

For those of you that would like the recipe written out instead of watching the video, here it is:

Sriracha Party Nuts
Ingredients

• 1 lb mixed nuts, lightly salted
• 1 egg white
• 1-2 tbsp sriracha
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 tsp fresh rosemary

Directions
Preheat the oven to 250 degrees. In a large bowl, whisk together the egg white, water & sriracha. Add the mixed nuts and mix until evenly coated.

In a small bowl, mix together the sugars and rosemary. Pour over the nuts and combine until they are all coated with a gooey, spicy, sweet mixture.

Spread the nuts out into a singly layer on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake for 1 hour, stirring every fifteen minutes and tasting as necessary :) Let cool completely before storing in an airtight container.

More treats coming up this week. Basically, I turned circles in my kitchen, clutching the From Scratch Holidays eBook, trying to make every recipe in there. It's that good, people. So anyhow, check back in to hear about my foray into making my own lotion & lip balm along with a post on the merits of infused liquor and a love note to homemade mustard.