Snack on this: Two choices for savory treats

Snack mix. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

When you're busy baking cookies this week, it's nice to have a few recipes that the kidoodles can help put together, especially savory snacks that will balance out super-sweet cookie trays. Here are two of my favorites: snack mix and roasted nuts. The snack mix is fun to assemble with kids, in fact, if they're shopping with you, let them choose a few of the ingredients - there's so much variety with pretzels and cheese crackers these days, your own family combination will be unique. Click here or on the link under the caption for the recipe.

Pan-roasted almonds and walnuts. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

I love almonds and they are my favorite nut to roast and season, but walnuts and pecans add variety, too. Check out my use of a wok skillet to roast and butter the nuts.

Roasted spicy almonds. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

If you haven't heard me say it yet, I will say it now:

Wishing you the blessings of the season! Merry Christmas!

Text and images copyright 2011, Lucy Mercer.