Candied Almonds

My hubby is not a huge fan of green salad. He enjoys teasing my by calling it rabbit food and pretending to put up a big fuss about eating it. I say pretending because he will eat it and he doesn't complain about too much. He's so amazing about things like that. Eating food he isn't super fond of. What a guy! Anyway, even if he eats it, I know he doesn't love it. Usually I can tell by the portions he eats. Or his willingness to drench it is something non-heart healthy just so he doesn't have to taste the lettuce. Well, okay, he buys low-fat ranch dressing just for that purpose. Apparently the dressing tastes better than the lettuce, though I cannot possibly fathom how that could be the truth. :)

We've been participating in a program called Bountiful Baskets {I think I've mentioned this briefly before}. In almost every single basket there is some kind of lettuce. Even for a salad lover like me, lettuce can get kind of old. So we stopped eating a lot of it . . . . . . . and then we ended up with a lettuce stock pile! Salad is the quickest way I can think of to use it up so we had to have salad. But how to convince the hubby that it really is okay to eat salad every single meal {minus breakfast of course .... I don't think I could do salad for breakfast} for a week? Well, the only thing I could think of was making it different. I'm not always known for my creativity and thus I decided to just add a couple of elements to the typical green salad.

The experiment begins!

And it's a success!

These almonds are so so yummy. In my hubby's own words: "These almonds make the salad edible."

So edible, in fact, I got him to eat salad for his birthday!! It must be good.

Ha! Okay, really, they do add a nice, crunchy sweet bit of deliciousness to your salad. Do you have a hard time getting your fam to eat the greens? Try putting these almonds on and see what it does. Maybe, like my hubby, it will be just the trick. :)

Candied Almonds
Adapted by Jessica Harwood

1/2 cup butter
1 1/4 cup slivered or sliced almonds
5-6 Tbsp granulated sugar {depending on how sweet you want them - I used 6}

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cover a cookie sheet with aluminum foil. {You can skip that step if you don't mind having dishes to wash. ;) }
Melt butter. Set aside.
In a medium bowl, mix the sugar and almonds together. Pour melted butter over almond mixture.
Spread the nuts on your pan covered with foil. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until slightly golden. Allow the mixture to cool. Break up the nuts and store in a covered container.
Serve over green salad or anything else candied almonds sound good on!



PS - Check back later for the other element I added to my green salad to make it "palatable". :)