Boiled Peanuts!

As you may know, my DH is from the South.  Georgia to be specific.  I don't know how many of you have ever visited the South, but it is like an entirely different world down there (much like Utah is entirely different from any where else in the US).  From their etiquette to their hospitality to their accents you find warm acceptance (however, they do expect you to show the same etiquette and hospitality... which can be scary!) that you would be hard pressed to find other places.  And then, you can't forget, their cuisine.  From Fried Chicken to Grits to Fried... anything.  You wonder how people come up with these things!  One thing in particular that got me saying, "What the....?!" was Boiled Peanuts.

I read somewhere that Boiled Peanuts were 'invented' during the Civil War.  The war was rough on the Confederates.  They didn't have near the supplies that the North was able to gather, and they ran out of food frequently.  One thing that there always seemed to be an abundance of was peanuts (which are grown down there if you didn't know...) so the starving soldiers decided to boil some up.  Low and behold there were delicious and are now a Southern specialty!

It wasn't until my third or fourth visit to Georgia that the hubby introduced me to them, and I admit I was hesitant to try them.  We pulled up to a roadside stand on our way to his grandmother's house and he came back with a styrofoam cup full of steaming Boiled Peanuts.  I watched DH eat one before I tried.  He sucked on the shell then slurped the nuts out, so I attempted to do the same.  It took a while to get used to the process but boy were they good!  It's like a potato chip.  Once you start eating them, you can't eat just one.

I got to thinking, "Hmmmmm, peanuts that are boiled.  That can't be too hard to make!  I'm gonna try!" I googled it and found a variety of different recipes.  I found a Paula Deen recipe and decided to try it. It didn't quite work.... It said the peanuts should only take 2 hours to cook.... They weren't ready 6 hours later.... so we let them cook overnight.  By morning they were done, but waaaay too salty (I added one cup of salt... for one pound of peanuts).

For my second attempt I started them much earlier so I could keep an eye on them.  They started around noon, and I only added 1/4 cup of salt this time.  At 5 we had to leave for a few hours and they weren't done, so we lowered the heat and left them.  We got back at midnight and they were perfect (although I think they could have used a tad more salt... maybe 1/2 cup?)!  Unfortunately by then we couldn't just sit and snack on them, so we strained them and put them in the fridge until morning.  When we got them out we boiled them for 10 more minutes to heat them up and have been snacking on them ever since!  Delicous!