I have a lot of soft cheeses right now. More, probably, than it's reasonable for any one household to have, but... so it goes.

I used up a bit of the giant pile of cream cheese that we had making bread and tasty spreads, but that still left me with a bunch of cream cheese and mascarpone that needed to be used up. And, in addition to that, I needed goat cheese for a recent salad. And, of course, the good goat cheese only came in a 600g package. So then I had a big pile of that to use up as well!

Fortuitously, I actually found an interesting cheesecake recipe that calls for all three of those cheeses! It even included a cranberry topping. Which allowed me to finally use up the bag of cranberries that I got by accident back in the fall. (It's been patiently waiting at the bottom of the freezer since October.) I don't think I could've found a recipe more tailor-made to the ingredients I had on hand. Very convenient!

Now, the cheesecake recipe came with its own instructions for making candied pistachios in the oven. And that seemed fine. But I knew that the last Cook's Country that we got contained a recipe for doing it on the stovetop. And that worked out better for me today, so I used that one. Same idea, slightly different process.

Skillet Candied Nuts

Slightly adapted from Cook's Country February/March 2021

Ingredients

• 1/2 c. raw nuts (chopped if large)
• 1 Tbsp. sugar
• 1 Tbsp. water
• 1/8 tsp. coarse sea salt, ground (optional)

Directions

1. Toast nuts over medium-low heat until fragrant (2-3 minutes).
2. Add sugar, water, and salt (if using) and stir to coat the nuts.
3. Cook, stirring frequently, until sugar caramelizes and nuts begin to clump (~3 minutes).
4. Transfer to plate and cool for at least 10 minutes.
6. Break into small clumps and serve or use as garnish.