A total non sequitur...

So, I took the recipe that I have for Cinnamon Walnuts, which I've already modified to make into Cinnamon Pecans, and modified it further to make Ginger Pecans.

They're quite good, although they don't have as much ginger bite as I might like. Something about cooking in the crockpot seems to have softened the ginger edge. But I was craving ginger snaps, and these seemed like a plan. Maybe next time just use more ginger. :o)

They're pretty easy.

Grease the crock with about 1 tbsp butter. Dump in 1 lb of pecans. Melt 3-4 tbsp butter, and mix in 1 tsp ginger, 1 tsp Splenda, 1/2 tsp sugar and 1 tsp vanilla. Pour mixture over nuts, and stir to coat pecans. Cook on low for about 2 1/4 hours, stirring every 20 minutes or so. When time is up, take the crock out of cooker immediately and place on hotpad (otherwise the nuts may burn). Sprinkle a mixture of 1 tsp ginger and 1/2 tsp sugar over nuts and stir to coat. Let cool.

The sugar IS needed to help the spices coat the nuts. But 1 tsp sugar for a whole lb of nuts is pretty negligible in terms of added carbs.

Hmmm, I'm kinda hungry. Maybe it's snack time.

Another very interesting book...

I recently finished an interesting book by Sue Hubbell, Shrinking the Cat: Genetic Engineering Before We Knew About Genes. Her premise is that we (as a species) have been tinkering with our environment and its denizens since our earliest beginnings. And in many ways, our current abilities to play with genes is simply an extension of our fascination with molding our environment to suit our fancies. And while the fact that we can now splice genes across species is scary to the lay person, to a scientist it's not a huge stretch.

She examines four species which we have selected and shaped to our purposes, and examines their histories, how we've fudamentally altered them (and in ways such that they would likely cease to exist if we vanished as a race) and how we've also furthered some *pests* in our quests to *improve* these engineered species. The species examined are: silkworms, corn, apples and domestic cats.

This book is fascinating reading. It's natural history, social history, personal memoir and an ode to science and scientists.