Caramelized Nut Cookies

I had these leftover nuts from a dinner party's appetizers. Got 'em from the bulk aisle at the co-op, some just mixed eating nuts, roasted, salted and the rest Agave Ginger Roasted - I know, sounds a little weird, but it's the co-op natural food store version of the sweet, and sometimes a little spicy, roasted nuts that everyone gives at Christmas.

I wanted to make some type of dessert, with the nuts glued onto a crust with caramel. Martha's got this recipe for Congo Bars, which are good, but it makes a lot, you have to make real caramel, and you need 6 cups of nuts and I only had 4. And they have graham cracker crust and some chocolate and coconut. Congo Bars just seemed like too much of an undertaking outside of cookie season.

So I just made the regular Silver Palate pecan bars - some years I play with the recipe, adding lemon zest to the crust, etc. but this time I played it straight, only sustituting 2% milk for the heavy cream called for - there's so much butter in the recipe that it really doesn't make any difference!

The saltiness of the nuts really adds something, I think - I've only eaten these made with unsalted pecans before. I had one last night with ice cream, and two today for lunch, with an apple (I walked an hour and a half, so it's OK).

And right after I finished eating, John called to ask me how to iron a shirt, so he could wear it to his art show preview. It was pretty humorous - we both had our iPhones on speaker, so I could tell him how to position the shirt on the ironing board, and he was trying to describe the icons on the iron -"this one's like a t-shirt with an X, this is a longer t-shirt, maybe this one's steam..."