Candied Nuts

Left to my own devices, I usually use walnut halves, but I've also done it with pecans.  Probably wouldn't work so well with almonds or peanuts.

1/2 cup water
1 cup sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp salt
Some vanilla--It's hard to use too much.  Just give it a good splash
2 to 2 1/2 cups nuts

Put the water, sugar, cinnamon, and salt in a small saucepan and bring it to a full boil.  Then bring the heat down so that the syrup is boiling but not in danger of boiling over.  You may need to move the pan on and off of the burner quite a bit while you're doing this--the boiling-but-not-boiling-over range is pretty small.  Keep the syrup at that temperature until it reaches the soft-ball stage.  If you've got a candy thermometer, good for you!  Soft-ball is 235-240 degrees Fahrenheit.  If you don't... yeesh, you can do it by sight--the bubbles get more numerous, longer-lasting, and closer together, but if you've never done this before, getting a candy thermometer is probably your best bet.

Once you've reached the soft-ball stage, remove the syrup from the heat, add a splash of vanilla, stir the whole mess a bit, add the nuts, and then stir like crazy until the coating on the nuts lightens in color.  Spread out the nuts to dry on a piece of parchment paper.