Happy New Year!  Is your resolution to have a sweet 2010?  You know we all need a little sweet in our lives to make us happy.

Make sure to add a little sweet to your new year with this heavenly, fluffy, nutty Pecan-Honey Butter.  Use it on your breads, biscuits, french toast, or pancakes – your imagination is the limit.

Pecan-Honey Butter

adapted from Southern Living Magazine (Nov. 2009)

makes 1 cup

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cup pecans, toasted and finely chopped
• 2 tbs. honey

Directions

1. To toast pecans, preheat oven to 300 degrees and bake on a tray for 10-15 minutes until fragrant. Let cool and chop.
2. Stir together butter, pecans, and honey until thoroughly mixed. Store in refrigerator or freeze.

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When my mother was pregnant with me, she was sure I was going to be a boy.  My parents painted my room blue.  They decided to name me name Kevin.  They came home from the hospital with a girl.

Apparently they had picked out a ‘back up’ name since my birth certificate says Karen.  And lucky for me they chose to spell it the most common way.  I do have people from time to time who just can’t seem to get it right, trying to start it with a C, or change the E to an A.  Or when it’s really loud somewhere, I might get, “Sharon?”, “Kara?”, “Carey?”.  But, I really am thankful that I haven’t had to spend my whole life spelling it out.  Even if I did have to grow up with a blue bedroom.

I’m sure Katharine Hepburn, who is said to have made some fabulous brownies, had to correct quite a few people in her lifetime.  And maybe she made said brownies for the people who got it right.  The first recipe in July for Tuesdays with Dorie, chosen by Lisa of Surviving Oz (visit her for the recipe), is based on these famous brownies, the secret being to add only a tiny amount of flour to the batter to make them rich and gooey.

The chocolate flavor of these Tribute to Katharine Hepburn Brownies is intense.  I used a dark chocolate cocoa powder, which made them even more intensely chocolaty.  I added only one teaspoon of instant coffee instead of two, and chose pecans and semi-sweet chips to add to the batter.

Fork?  A must.  Chocolate craving?  Taken care of.

In the town where we lived previously, I used to get my fish from a man who would travel on Thursday from Greensboro to Topsail Island and pick up loads of fish and shrimp and bring them back to sell on Friday and Saturday.  I discovered him one day set up across from the Farmer’s Market and bought some shrimp that turned out to be the best shrimp I had ever eaten.  After that I was hooked (pun intended).

I started getting all my seafood from “the fish man”, as my children called him, and would pick it up on Fridays after school (which caused no small amount of moaning and groaning in the back seat).  It was all fresh, never frozen, and top quality.  I found out that I could cook fish at home that tasted better than even what I ate at most restaurants.  Spoiled is what I would call it.

Unfortunately, this story has an unhappy ending.  I moved and can’t visit my beloved “fish man” anymore.  He is sorely missed.  I’m still searching for another fresh fish supplier, but in the meantime I buy my the freshest I can get at the market.  I made this recipe from Cooking Light magazine with some nice-looking tilapia I bought, and it was terrific – sweet and savory.

If you live in the area, look up my favorite fish man at The Shrimp Connection: Radically Fresh Seafood, and he’ll hook you up!

For the Pecan-Crusted Tilapia recipe, click here.