Peanuts - Family Recipes Part 2

Peanut recipes have long been a part of my family, on both sides. My Aunt Nancy and Uncle James harvest peanuts on their farm and they kept us supplied. Pecan pie was one of my favorites growing up, and chocolate covered peanuts were a standard treat when we visited my grandparents in Ohio.
I recently was blessed by Aunt Nancy with several bags of raw peanuts and some delicious recipes. These are easy and, because the base is a peanut, you can snack freely feeling (at least a little) healthy. :)

Candied Peanuts
Mom would usually make these at Christmas but they are delicious anytime. They aren't difficult or time consuming but you have to be able to give attention to them toward the end. As Nancy wrote in the recipe, "They can burn in a skinny minute" which isn't long!!

2 c raw peanuts (you can use the regular salted if you can't find raw)
1 c sugar
1/2 water
a few drops of red food coloring (optional)

Preheat the oven to 250 and have a large rimmed cookie sheet on the counter.
In a heavy saucepan, mix all the ingredients together.

 
Put on the stovetop on medium heat, stirring occasionally until the water dissolves. This will probably just take a few minutes. This is also where you have to watch close. When the water is almost gone, the it only takes a few seconds for those peanuts to burn.

All covered in water, ready to cook!

This is right before they would have started burning. All the water is dissolved out.

 When the water has dissolved and all the peanuts are coated, dump out on the cookie sheet and pop in the oven for about 20 minutes.

 
Stir with a wooden spoon every few minutes to keep the peanuts from sticking. They are done when you taste one and it's crunchy (raw peanuts are pretty chewy so you want these to have a nice crunch!).
Remove from the oven and let cool before storing in a Ziplock bag or plastic container.

So yummy!!

Chocolate Covered Peanuts
Whenever we would visit family in Ohio, Grandma usually made these. I need to offer a little family history at this point: my Grandpa and uncle are funeral directors and they live above their funeral home. So even though the house is large, the living quarters upstairs are small. The back of the house where the bedrooms are is unheated and there's a landing where Grandma would store yummy treats that needed to be kept cool...like chocolate covered peanuts and pretzels. It was always so convenient to snag a few snacks off the cookie sheets whenever we wanted. Of course, Grandma kept all the rows of treats in perfect order so she could tell when someone was sneaking but she never let on. I think everyone in the family is guilty of taking something at some point.

2 c peanuts, raw or salted
1 bag semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 bar baking chocolate
2 TB peanut butter (optional but why not?!)

Line cookie sheets with wax paper.
Melt the chocolate in the microwave or over the stove, whichever you prefer. Just don't burn!!

Look at all that chocolate!

Mix in the peanut butter until it's creamy.

 
Stir peanuts in until covered.

 
Using spoons, dish out mounds of chocolate covered peanuts and drop onto the cookie sheets. Store in a cool place until the chocolate hardens (fridge, freezer, garage, wherever).

 
If it's summer when you make these, I suggest storing them in the fridge. It doesn't take long for that chocolate goodness to melt.