Sugar Spiced Almonds

I think there's something wrong with my appetite. I've been discussing this problem with several of my friends until Wonster was telling me about her visit to one of our friend's house recently who just had a beautiful baby girl. She was telling me about how Michelle had to wake up in the middle of the night to feed the baby every hour. Then I realized my problem, I am a full grown woman with an appetite of a newborn baby. Uh oh.

If only I could blame it on having a tiny stomach or going through a growth spurt. My constant snacking has become pretty ridiculous so one day I made a mental note of all the times I ate something and I noticed that I was drinking or eating something every hour. My friends have tried to appease me by telling me it's OK to eat small snacks frequently throughout the day, but I don't know if every hour is normal.

Part of the problem is that in an effort not to resort to the alluring food court downstairs or vending machine snacks, I've been bringing loads of snacks from home, which I end up eating all of.

Almonds are one of these snacks and they are supposed to be good for you in moderation. I get sick of eating raw ones though so I am trying to spice things up. I tried Alton Brown's Ginger Almonds, which were great, but I wanted to try to make cinnamon almonds this time.

I found this recipe on allrecipes.com, tweaked it a bit and came up with this. I saw some recipes for salty almonds and others for sweet ones. I couldn't decide between the two so I went with both.

Sugar Spiced Almonds

adapted from allrecipes.com

3 cups almonds

¼ crushed red pepper

½ teaspoon chili powder

¼ teaspoon garlic powder

¼ teaspoon kosher salt

1 teaspoon cayenne pepper

¼ cup sugar

2 tbsp light brown sugar

1 egg white

1 teaspoon cold water

Preheat oven to 250 degrees F. Line a jellyroll pan with parchment paper. In a separate bowl, combine the dry ingredients.

Mix the dry ingredients together.

In a bowl, whip the egg white until frothy. Add water and beat until frothy, but not stiff.

Add the nuts and toss to coat.

Mix the dry ingredients until combined and sprinkle over the nuts. Toss to coat, and spread evenly on the prepared pan.

Bake for 1 hour in the preheated oven, stirring every 15 minutes, until golden. Allow to cool, then store nuts in airtight containers. Cool the nuts and store in an airtight container.

The combo of sweet, salty and spicy are really good with the crunchy almonds. It's hard to stop eating them, but the spicy part definitely keeps me at bay from eating the whole container. Thank goodness.