Pralines Y'all!!

Its amazing how certain tastes, smells, or feelings can take you back in time. I guess it is really a sensory deja vu that conjures up sentimental memories. I have been having a lot of these little bursts of memory lately, and they all take me back to my mawmaw and pawpaw's house when I was a little girl.

Mawmaw and Pawpaw's house was and is a very special place to me. It is located on a large suburban lot just outside of the city with a barn, and several gardens. I spent a lot of time with Mawmaw and Pawpaw when I was little. Mawmaw and I would do all kinds of things when I would visit. Sometimes we would search for doodle bugs in the barn, sometimes we would sit on a bench swing while eating a warm plum or peach plucked from one of the back yard fruit trees, and sometimes we would scour the yard for pecans. I could go on forever about all of the special memories I have of that house!

One particularly fond memory of my childhood with Mawmaw and Pawpaw is candy making, praline making to be particular. Mawmaw and I spent many evenings standing around of a big pot of boiling sugar and milk waiting and stirring, hoping we didn't overcook the mixture. After the slow process of cooking and observing our sugar mixture we would franticly scoop little pecan filled dollops of warm -quickly cooling- candy onto wax paper. There was always a feeling of accomplishment if we got all of the candy out of the pan before it cooled enough to harden. The best part of candy making with Mawmaw was eating fresh pralines when we were are all done!

All of these memories came flooding back when I tasted the first praline I have had in years. Ordinarily pralines contain both butter and milk. Candy making is almost a science, so I figured vegan pralines were not an option. I was lucky enough to find a recipe for pralines in The Vegan Soul Kitchen by Bryant Terry that includes coconut oil rather than butter and coconut milk rather than its dairy cousin. I made these with moderate luck at first, so I tried again with my helper (Parker) and they turned out perfect. Pralines are definitely a trigger to happy memories in one of my favorite places in the world.