Roasted Pistachios

A few months ago I needed some raw, shelled pistachios for a cold soup recipe I was working on, but I bought waaaaay more than I needed at the bulk foods section of my local Whole Foods. It was a little like buying way more ahi tuna or premium gasoline these days. I don't remember the exact price but it wasn't cheap.

But I ended up with 4 or 5 cups of leftover pistachio nuts after I made the soup. They have been sitting in the pantry waiting for me to figure out how to roast them which I finally did today. Since they are already shelled, I feel like have a few month's supply of pistachios.

Pistachios, like almonds, are quite nutritious with lots of fiber, vitamin B6, thiamin, copper, and phosphorus. Most of the fat is monounsaturated, similar to olive oil.

So thanks to a handful of internet sites, this is how I roasted the pistachios. Tasty!

Roasted Pistachios

• Preheat the oven to 250 degrees
• Dissolve 2-3 tablespoons salt in 1/4 cup of water in a wide-based saucepan. For salt, figure 2-3 tablespoons for 5 cups of pistachios and up. Use that as a starting point and adjust to your tastes and the amount of pistachios you have.
• Add pistachios to salt water and heat the saucepan to high heat
• Stir constantly until water is evaporated and the salt water is distributed all over the nuts
• Spread on cookie sheets and smooth out into a single layer of nuts
• Roast for 1 1/2 to 1 3/4 hours stirring every 30 minutes. I ended with two cookie sheets full so it took the longer amount of time. The fun is sampling to decide when they are roasted enough.