Holiday Baking - Part 2

Today's cooking chores included finishing the Cream Wafer cookies by baking the wafers and then icing them. There are many tricks one can use to make this chore less tedious and I took photos to illustrate them. (NOTE: There are four photos and comments for completing the Cream Wafers and one photo/comment for removing the Cherry Coconut Bars (recipe published yesterday) from the pan and cutting them up and a photo showing the completed cookies as part of a holiday party presentation.) Meantime, I made one of my annual nut mixtures today. (will make the other one within the next day or two and post that recipe and one (or two) more later on)

Mixed Herbed Nuts

• 8 oz each of pecan halves, whole raw cashews and almonds
• 1/4 C sesame seeds
• 1 tsp thyme
• 1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper
• 1 egg white, whipped to frothy stage

Combine all dry ingredients and toss to roughly mix before adding to the whipped egg white. Mix dry ingredients with egg white until all are well coated with the herb mixture. Spread mixture on lightly oiled baking sheet and bake in pre-heated 325° oven for 40 minutes. Turn every 10 minutes. Cool completely when done and store in tightly sealed container. Nuts probably may be frozen although I've never done that because I give them all away or eat them in fairly short order. [NOTE: If intended recipients aren't on a no/low salt diet, you may want to add ~ 1/2 tsp salt when combining the dry ingredients.]