Pecans

Millicent Beal from Jarrettsville was trying to find a recipe she saw in a magazine not long ago for Brussels sprouts with pecans. Barbara Clark from Windsor, Calif., sent in a recipe she had from Cooking Light magazine for making Brussels sprouts that she said she really enjoys. She said that she thinks it "elevates boring Brussels sprouts to a tastier level." Slicing the Brussels sprouts before sautéing cuts done on the cooking time. The addition of sugar and chicken stock give the dish a somewhat sweet yet rich and balanced flavor and the toasted pecans on top finish the dish perfectly.

Linda Settles from Havre de Grace was looking for a recipe for brown sugar pie that duplicated the one her grandmother used to make. She said her grandmother had five daughters but none of them remember how she made the pie. Jeannie Armstrong from Dayton, MD found a recipe for the pie in a cookbook she bought at an antique store years ago. It was first published in 1915 and revised in 1944. I tested the recipe that she kindly sent in and found that it needed a little tweaking.

TODAY WE PRESENT an important breakthrough in the continuing effort by research scientists to figure out what, if anything, men are thinking. But first, we have an important warning concerning a worrisome topic that, unfortunately, is very much on our minds these days: pecan safety. This warning is based on an alarming report from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, which was written by Heather Ratcliffe and sent in by a number (14 million) of alert readers. The report concerns a Pacific, Mo., couple who -- like so many people -- kept a bucket of pecans in their garage.

Mary Fitzsimmons from Crossville, Tenn., was looking for a recipe she had lost for carrot cake in a loaf pan. She said that the recipe she had made two loaves and that it had a somewhat "spicier" taste than most carrot cake. Darlene Ross from Towson sent in a recipe she likes for making carrot-pecan bread. She thought that her recipe sounded similar to what Fitzsimmons was searching for. Her recipe produced a very hearty, dense bread that would be wonderful served with some cream cheese for breakfast or tea. It keeps well and with the recipe yielding two loaves you will likely have one you can freeze for later or give away.

Looking for an impressive dish for quick and flashy entertaining? Try turkey scallops for a change. Also called turkey cutlets or turkey fillets, these are thin slices from the raw boneless breast of turkey. These delicate cutlets have been making nutritional waves lately because a 3-ounce portion has only 90 calories and 20 mg of cholesterol. They cook in a remarkably short amount of time (as quickly as a veal scallop), but beware of overcooking -- these fillets can quickly become tough and chewy.

Just in time for the New Year's party scene: Nuts! Hardly a party takes place these day without a bowl pecans, almonds, pistachios and the like coated with spicy, sweet or savory seasonings. To most of us, they are a nice little snack. Boston-based cookbook author (and nut entrepreneur) Sally Sampson recognized them as something more - an opportunity. Enter Party Nuts! (Harvard Common Press, 2002, $9.95), Sampson's collection of 50 recipes of, well, party nuts. That's a pretty slender idea on which to hang a cookbook, but Sampson certainly goes far and wide in her quest for spicy finger food.

Avocado tips The Grinch isn't the only green thing appearing this time of year. So are Mexican avocados. Look for fruit that feels heavy for its size. Ready-to-use avocados should be soft on the bottom. Chefs to the rescue Shady Brook Farms, a Virginia turkey grower, has teamed up with several chefs to provide holiday meal advice and recipes. The toll-free number is available 24 hours a day at 888-723-4468. Pecans' staying power Have pecans left over from holiday baking? The Georgia Pecan Commission says the nuts can be kept in airtight containers in the refrigerator for nine months or in the freezer for up to two years.

Herbal dressings are real winnersLocal violin teacher Cynthia Swiss decided to sell her fat-free herbal dressings and marinades when they won grand championship and first-place awards at the Anne Arundel County Fair. She's marketed two under the name Falls Farms: white wine and basil, and ginger and lemon herb.For $5.50 a bottle, you get lots of flavor and only 15 calories a serving. Swiss' dressings can be found at the Coffee Mill in Baltimore, the Hidden Garden in Arbutus and the Horizon Nursery in Freeland.

The fun of a party without the stressIf you find giving a dinner party more stressful than visiting the dentist, lighten up with Stir Crazy, a culinary game in which two teams of guests compete to produce a Mexican, Oriental or Italian meal. The game includes invitations, team name tags, a list of suggested ingredients, and a cassette with instructions and theme music. The game is $30 in gourmet shops, specialty stores and bookstores. Cinnamon-spiced pecans ("Mashuga nuts"), chocolate-dipped Hanukkah candy sticks, and an Israeli candy bar are a few of the gourmet kosher gift items from the Northwest available through the Kosher Connection of Portland, Ore. Other holiday gifts include a Dreydel Delight basket ($34.

A new desk job has forced me to sit for long hours at a time. My back is starting to pay the price. What can I do to keep from having a sore back at the end of the day? Who would have thought sitting still could be so stressful -- on the back, that is? Many of us have to tolerate eight or more hours of sitting in front of a computer. While teaching yoga might be a back-sufferer's dream job, not all of us are that lucky. Here are some tips desk-bound folks can use to ease back stress. Don't: * Cross your legs.

Millicent Beal from Jarrettsville was trying to find a recipe she saw in a magazine not long ago for Brussels sprouts with pecans. Barbara Clark from Windsor, Calif., sent in a recipe she had from Cooking Light magazine for making Brussels sprouts that she said she really enjoys. She said that she thinks it "elevates boring Brussels sprouts to a tastier level." Slicing the Brussels sprouts before sautéing cuts done on the cooking time. The addition of sugar and chicken stock give the dish a somewhat sweet yet rich and balanced flavor and the toasted pecans on top finish the dish perfectly.

Yvonne Allen of Jamestown, N.C., was looking for a recipe for a butter pecan cake. Mary Blair of Ellicott City sent in her recipe for the cake that she says won second place in the open division at the 1963 Howard County Fair. Her recipe makes an outstanding old-fashioned three-layer cake chock-full of buttery toasted pecans. I found that her recipe did not make enough frosting to ice the entire cake, so I just frosted between the layers and on the top. While the presentation left a little to be desired, having less frosting turned out to be a good thing.

It's hard to imagine enjoying the winter holidays without cookies. Yet with so much to do, it's sometimes hard to squeeze in time to bake as well. So for our annual cookie exchange at The Sun this year, we decided to make every cookie count. We went looking for two kinds of cookies to meet the most pressing demands of the season: cookies that can be made fast and those fancy enough to give to friends or put on the party table. We received more than 100 recipes and many of them were so tasty or clever it was hard to choose just a dozen.

Suzanne Conrad, winner of the 41st Pillsbury Bake-Off's million-dollar prize, says she knew she had a winner when her 90-year-old grandmother, Dora "Nana" Sullivan, who taught her to cook, asked for the recipe. Inspired by pecan pie, Conrad, a mother of two, mixed crumbled granola bars, oats, walnuts and chocolate chips in a filling that was baked in a refrigerated pie crust. "It's a lot of money for a little effort," Conrad, 35, told the Associated Press, adding that her prize money would go into a college fund for her 3-year-old son and 1-year-old daughter and to pay off loans for her master's degree in library science.

A new desk job has forced me to sit for long hours at a time. My back is starting to pay the price. What can I do to keep from having a sore back at the end of the day? Who would have thought sitting still could be so stressful -- on the back, that is? Many of us have to tolerate eight or more hours of sitting in front of a computer. While teaching yoga might be a back-sufferer's dream job, not all of us are that lucky. Here are some tips desk-bound folks can use to ease back stress. Don't: * Cross your legs.

Just in time for the New Year's party scene: Nuts! Hardly a party takes place these day without a bowl pecans, almonds, pistachios and the like coated with spicy, sweet or savory seasonings. To most of us, they are a nice little snack. Boston-based cookbook author (and nut entrepreneur) Sally Sampson recognized them as something more - an opportunity. Enter Party Nuts! (Harvard Common Press, 2002, $9.95), Sampson's collection of 50 recipes of, well, party nuts. That's a pretty slender idea on which to hang a cookbook, but Sampson certainly goes far and wide in her quest for spicy finger food.

My husband and I are enthusiastic movie fans and see almost every first-run film that comes to town. We get to a fair number of the foreign ones as well. Many of our friends are also cinema buffs, so a group of us always organizes an Academy Awards party on Oscar night.Each year we enjoy a potluck dinner before the ceremony, and during the awards we pass bowls of popcorn and nibble on Junior Mints and M&Ms. Because we all fill out ballots before the program, there are shouts of victory from those who selected the winners as the Oscars are handed out. Sometimes, there are even decorations to set the mood for this fete.

After juggling a dozen pots on four burners, that annual circus trick otherwise known as getting Thanksgiving dinner onto the table, there is always a moment of pause. Think ahead to this Thursday. Everyone's seated, foil is removed from casseroles, and ice is clinking in the water glasses. What do you imagine will happen in those few suspended seconds before the hungry mob, otherwise known as your loved ones, descends on the food? "All of my brother's and sisters' families get together, and before we eat, we play our annual Turkey Bowl soccer game," said Bart Harvey, chief executive officer of the Enterprise Foundation in Columbia, a nonprofit organization that builds affordable housing nationwide.

TODAY WE PRESENT an important breakthrough in the continuing effort by research scientists to figure out what, if anything, men are thinking. But first, we have an important warning concerning a worrisome topic that, unfortunately, is very much on our minds these days: pecan safety. This warning is based on an alarming report from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, which was written by Heather Ratcliffe and sent in by a number (14 million) of alert readers. The report concerns a Pacific, Mo., couple who -- like so many people -- kept a bucket of pecans in their garage.