62. November 24th, 2010 Picture.

My mother is pretty much the best cook ever.  Everything she makes becomes an instant classic, sending people's expectations so high, nothing ever compares.  We all have our favorite signature dishes, mine being delmonico potatoes and cucumber and onion, which is an amazing Polish side dish that my grandmother used to make.  I once saw the Barefoot Contessa make something kind of similar except she used greek yogurt and dill, and honestly, that was the one moment when I said to myself, 'so she is human, she can make a mistake', because dill is just gross.


The point of my story, and I promise there is one, is that my mom has so many signature dishes that we love, that my family has become high maintenance.  She cooks the corn for me, turnip for Eddie, the brussel sprouts for Eddie, green beans for me, and then a little side of French's Fried Onions, not on anything, just cooked alone, for me too.  I like to add them to my potatoes for some crunch.  Now that I look at it, it's really just me and and Eddie that are demanding, figures, the two babies of the family.  


Anyway, again, the point of my ramblings, is that the one thing everyone in my family loves, especially my nephew Cameron, are my mom's pecan rolls.  They are warm and cinnamony and gooey, and they are just oh so amazing.  We have to hide a small batch on holidays because if we didn't there would be none left over to have with your coffee the next morning, or for a midnight snack or to eat with your leftovers.  Yes, they are that good, they just need to be consumed all the time.


Even though they are in high demand and everyone's favorite, I get the impression from my mother that they are absolutely the biggest pain ever to make.  Like prepping days in advance and slaving over caramel sauce type pain.  They have to be mixed, kneaded, filled, rolled, then left to rest and rise overnight.  There is homemade caramel sauce and pecans poured into each individual muffin tin before the dough is added, then each pecan roll is brushed with butter.  Then we must wait.

And then wait a little more, until the rolls look like they might explode out of the muffin tin.

Only THEN can we cook them!  Phew.  My mom and I spent the entire night before Thanksgiving making pecan rolls.  Okay, more like my mom made them, and I added the pecans to the muffin tins, and drank champagne.  Like I said, it's extremely labor intensive.   They are totally worth the effort though because they are always the star of the day.  Even though we're all mostly grown ups now, except for me, I am and most likely always will be a 'big kid', we consider these a treat.  We don't have them all the time, so it makes us appreciate those days when we do get to have them!