mulberryshoots

It’s about an hour before the kickoff for the Pats vs. Broncos game in Denver today. Otherwise known as “Brady vs. Manning.” Last night, I had a recurring dream that I had made some Asian dumplings with a special energy powder in them for the Pats. In fact, in the dream, G., my husband, was supposed to bring them to Danny Amendola (I kid you not.) Anyhow, it was a humorous dream to have.

But this afternoon, I was casting around for something to make as a snack for us to eat during the game since it starts mid-afternoon. Lemon pound cake was an idea but had two sticks of butter and two cups of sugar in the recipe even though I have some Meyer lemons in the fridge that would have been perfect to bake these little treats.

I did remember that I had some raw cashews in the pantry – and then came across Ina Garten’s recipe for roasted cashew nuts with fresh rosemary. Since we’re having lamb loin chops for our supper tonight, the fresh rosemary was on hand, and I also liked the idea that the nuts would be roasted first and then coated in a mixture of fresh rosemary, brown sugar, butter, cayenne pepper and salt rather than the old standby of coating them with egg whites which I’ve tried a couple of times with walnuts and which were sticky and unappetizing to deal with.

So, here are the nuts, resting in the still warm oven after being coated with the mixture. It seemed like common sense to put them back into the oven (350 for 8 minutes) to dry out a little and crisp up on their own since they were raw to begin with.

This isn’t Asian dumplings similar to my comical dream last night, but our good wishes are there for the Pats to win today.

Here’s hoping!

Afterword: Well, that was a painful game to watch if you’re a Patriots fan. We enjoyed the nuts but wished the Pats were going to the Super Bowl. In hindsight, this season has been a meaningful one for us in New England given the bad press and hype regarding the NFL’s punishment of Tom Brady. Go Pats!