My Little Nutcrackers!!

A little while back a neighbor of ours gave us a bag of Pecans. I put them in the pantry wondering if I would ever get around to cracking them open and retrieving the actual nuts. Today it hit me that maybe the boys could help me. I thought they might enjoy getting to use a hammer (supervised of course) and breaking nuts. I was right!! They loved it and even Cooper wanted in on the action. What is it about boys and hitting things!! I'm sure there is a trick to breaking open pecans without destroying the nut inside but we went through an entire bag and I never figured the trick out!! Most of the pecans Chance cracked open were smashed so much we couldn't get anything out...but he had fun and did get a few good pieces! Cade got the hang of it and did a very good job. Cooper just enjoyed holding the hammer like the big boys. By the time we finished we had a very large mess and a small container of pecans. I'm not even sure we have enough for a pie but these pecans WILL be going into a pie anyway! It takes along time to get enough nuts to put in a pie. I've never made a pecan pie so I'll be looking for a good recipe. After all the work it takes to get the nuts the pie better be GOOD!! If you have a good recipe send it my way!

click pictures to enlarge
Hard at work

Just after we got started,,,before the big mess

The big mess and our container of nuts! They do look good don't they!!