Patterns

I had not counted on it. I was so focused on finding ways to use up my mother's stash of nuts that I had not considered if those ways were in themselves particularly useful. So I made butter out of pecans. It was good butter, but soon it became clear that it was not going away on its own. I had to help it along. How?

Eat it, obviously.

Except I’m not supposed to. Not that that has stopped me before. What I really mean is: I would rather not. We’re talking sugar here. Like I said elsewhere on this blog, my only problem with sugar is that it’s sweet. Chocolate I prefer dark. Cake? Not my thing at all, save for when it has mint in it. I love mint. Otherwise you will never find me mooning over the dessert counter.

My mother likes peanut butter. Too much. Last time I checked, we had three jumbo jars of the stuff in the pantry. What were the odds she would go for pecan over peanut? Never mind. I love peanut butter too, mostly in the form of Reese’s chocolate cups. It takes me three days to go through one. Reese’s cups, I mean.

And there was my answer. Pecan butter bars! I used this peanut butter bars recipe as a template. Except for the main ingredient, too faithfully. The bars turned out wickedly sweet. Other than that they were fine. And they sure looked good. It helped that the recipe did not involve baking.

You might be interested about the pecan butter. It was mixed with an equal part of crushed graham crackers for the crust. Those swirls on the chocolate? Peanut butter. Sweetness aside, that was the taste that stood out. Pecan butter? What pecan butter? So long, pecan butter.

If I can get these bars off my hands, that is. That should be easy, don’t you think? There’s a reason why diabetes is one of the leading causes of death in this country. Not that I’m trying to scare you. Sweet is relative. Live a little. Have a bar. Please.