Pumpkin Spiced Peanut Bread Pudding and Recipe Contest!

It’s no wonder where I get my drive to stay busy.  My Mom and my Aunt Martha are shining examples that age is just a number and you get so much more out of life if you stay active.  I know I’ve talked it about it before, but there are some times of the year I literally need to schedule time with my Mom weeks in advance. 

My Aunt Martha downsized her real estate holdings – one of the apartment buildings she owned with my Uncle was getting a bit much to handle, and as luck would have it, she found a buyer and while that headache is gone, it’s left her with a lot of free time on her hands.  So by chance, she and her new friend (not sure if he’s your boyfriend or not Aunt Martha?!) stumbled upon a wholesale peanut business.  I am sure everyone in the south is familiar with Virginia peanuts.  I don’t know what it is about them, but they blow Planter’s peanuts straight out of the water.

Whitley’s Nuts are in a whole other league from any other Virginia peanut I’ve ever had.   Stephanie, I am wondering if you’ve tasted these nuts before?

And Hannah and Jacob could not keep their hands out of the chocolate covered peanuts!

My Aunt sent me a selection of their peanuts – so far, the salt and pepper ones are my favorite:

One of the peanuts that I was on the fence about before even trying it was the pumpkin spice one.  I am not sure why, but I didn’t think I was going to like them at all.  Well, turns out I was wrong – I love them!

I guess I thought these would be overly sweet, but they aren’t at all.  Perfect blend of sugar, pumpkin spice and of course the salt.  Yum! 

So my Aunt and I thought we could do a little recipe contest on my blog here.  Basically just send me your favorite nut recipe either with a link in the comment section if you have a blog, or if you don’t, you can just email it to me at mybizzykitchen@gmail.com.  Bloggers, go through your archives on this one!  I figured I had to do some sort of recipe developing too – and since its our named partners birthday, and he LOVES bread pudding I decided to make a pumpkin peanut spiced bread pudding with chocolate chips.

I made two batches of this bread pudding.  One for work and the other for Jacob’s grandparents who LOVE bread pudding, especially his Nana.  I decided to make a whiskey glaze for the work version, since he loves whiskey.   All I did was put 1/4 cup sugar, 1/2 cup apple juice (I had a lone juice box in my pantry from when Hannah’s friends son was over) 1/4 cup whiskey, pinch of cinnamon, 2/3 cup water mixed with 2 teaspoons cornstarch.  Put the sugar, apple juice, whiskey and cinnamon and bring to a low boil, or until the sugar melts.  Mix the water with the corn starch, add that to the sugar mixture and cook to a rolling boil for 1 minute until thickened.  Remove from heat, cool and store in a mason jar.  The glaze will keep for over a week in the fridge.

So what’s the prize you might ask?   FIVE 12 OUNCE CONTAINERS OF ASSORTED WHITNEY’S PEANUTS!  That’s a prize worth over $50. 

• salted
• salt and pepper
• chili habanero
• Chesapeake crabby
• white chocolate

But the best part is that my Aunt is able to offer you a sample pack for the peanut lover in your family, just in time for the holidays.  You’ll get five 3 oz. assorted peanuts in these flavors:  salted, honey roasted, Chesapeake crabby, habanero and salt and pepper.   Only $15 including shipping.  These are amazing nuts people, and long time readers know how much I love nuts in my mouth. 

If you are interested in buying the sample pack, just shoot me an email and I’ll give you her contact information, or just leave a comment below saying “I want that!” and I’ll email you directly.

Looking forward to some nutty recipes! 

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I am sure you’ve heard that we got some snow over the weekend.  We ended up with about 13 inches when it was all said and done.  I took these pics early Saturday morning before the snow had even stopped.

I had plans to drive to Oak Park Saturday morning to meet with some high school friends, but I backed out.  What I hate more than driving in rain is driving in snow.  Not so much me driving in it, but I think some people either over compensate and drive 10 miles an hour, or don’t give a shit and drive like it’s a dry road.  I spent lots of time in my kitchen this weekend!  So many recipes to share with you later this week:

Bush’s Baked Bean Chili – sweet/smokey/spicy:

Ciabatta bread – check out this dough!

My first cherry pie!  You guys, stop looking for the best pie dough recipe, because I’ve already found it.   Remember the peach pie I made for Tony last summer, but I had to give it away because Tony and I had to go back to Mayo?  I gave it to my neighbor and he said that while he’d only had a couple of peach pies in his life to compare it to, he said the crust was the best he’d ever had in any type of pie.  Go get the recipe here at Natasha’s Kitchen, but I do make the dough in my food processor.  Add the dry ingredients and pulse to combine.  I chopped up the butter and cream cheese into one inch pieces and added them to the flour mixture and pulsed until combined.  I add between 3-4 tablespoons of heavy cream and you’ll know when its combined because it will pull away from the sides of your processor – literally takes a minute to put together.  Wrap in plastic, chill for an hour, roll out and bake.  You can follow her instructions here on how to do the lattice top – this is only my second lattice top and you’ll see it looks really good. 

Hooray for a short work week!  So whose going to show me they are nuts for nuts!  Bring on the recipes and good luck.  Hannah and Jacob will be the judges by the way for all the entries.

Make it a great day!