I want to eat these forever

I was thinking the other day about how much I miss PCC in Seattle. Especially their bulk section and deli.

My two favorite things in the bulk section at PCC are wasabi peas

and curried cashews

Picture from here.

My friends Katie, Carin, Nira and I had planned a girls' evening for last night, and I was in charge of bringing tomato soup. In order to procure the best soup possible, I decided to forgo my usual trip to the Gross Out and head to the more upscale Raley's.

I even went to the good Raley's at the Y.(Sidenote: if you are ever in Tahoe and are confused because people are referring to the "Y", don't worry. You're not crazy the "Y" is not actually a Y, and is, in fact, just a normal "T" intersection.) This Raley's has a pretty good bulk section, and, lo and behold, they even had Curried Cashews!

I was so excited...then I noticed that the Curried Cashews were $11.99 a pound, while plain cashews were $5.99 a pound. Hmmm...

I bought the plain cashews, and searched for a recipe. I couldn't find one that I thought sounded exactly right, so I combined several, and here's what I came up with:

Roasted Curry Cashews:

2 cups cashews (I used plain ones, but if you buy roasted & salted ones, just skip Step 1)

2-3 tbsp curry powder, depending how strong you want them

3ish tbsp olive oil

1.5 tsp sea salt

dash cayenne pepper

1. Heat oven to 350. Roast cashew pieces in a tray for 10 - 15 minutes, stirring every few minutes. Watch carefully because they can burn.

2. While cashews are roasting, mix olive oil, curry powder, salt, and cayenne pepper. I heated the mixture in the microwave for about 90 seconds, but you could also do this in a pot on the stove. This makes the mixture a little easier to pour.

3. Take the roasted cashews out of the oven, pour the curry mixture over the cashews, and mix so the nuts are pretty evenly coated. I did this in the pan I was using for roasting, because it had sides, but if you're using a cookie sheet, you might want to do this in a bowl so the nuts don't escape. Spread the cashews around so they're in a pretty thin layer.

4. Return the cashews to the 350 degree oven for about 10 minutes. The cashews should look brown and kind of shiny when they're done.

Let cool to the point that you can eat them without burning your mouth and enjoy!

I'm excited to try this recipe with other spices, like cracked pepper or rosemary or maybe even cinnamon and sugar.

Is it spring where you are yet? I though spring was maybe beginning to arrive, but we got about 6 inches of snow in the last 10 hours. This is what it looks like in my neighborhood right now: