My sweet little 87 year old mother, the crack addict.

[Denninmi]

She's been pleading with me to be her supplier for the past few months.

She says she needs it, every day. Spends all of her spare time doing it.

I come home from work, and she asks me if I can hook her up with more.

I get up in the morning, and she's gone through what I gave her and wants me to get more ready for her before I leave.

She's somewhere near 100 lbs now, since November.

I'm talking about black walnuts here, people. I crack them in the electric nut cracker, and then she sits there and separates the shells from the nutmeats. Together, we've put close to 100 lbs of nutmeats in the freezer since early November. We're about 2/3rds of the way through the 2011 crop.

What did you THINK I was talking about? Geesh!

[siligut]

1. What are you going to do with all those walnuts?

I think I had black walnuts as a kid. They are denser, sweeter and nuttier than regular walnuts, IIRC.

[Denninmi]

2. Ah, the greedy vultures in my family are already circling.

We parcel them out to my sisters, my niece, a couple of uncles/aunts, and a couple of neighbors. We've already doled out about 35-40 lbs of them, and will distribute the rest as we see people this spring.

We'll only keep about 15 lbs for ourselves.

Sure are nice to have, though. I use them in a lot of things, from baking to trail mix to coating on fried chicken.

[siligut]

4. I had them in Russian Tea Cakes

They were delicious. I wouldn't think to coat chicken with them, but I have seen that done on Top Chef with other nuts.

[handmade34]

3. I'm from Michigan

I get it... spent hours with my mother, years ago, cracking black walnuts yummmm

[OriginalGeek]

5. How awful am I?

I read the whole thing and can only think that "nutmeats" should be a phrase of the day with which one should alter a thread title.


I'll be saying "nutmeats" in my head for hours and probably out loud once I am gone from work.

I can tell you in advance, my wife does not thank you.

[csziggy]

6. What kind of nut cracker do you use?

When we bought this farm there were two mature black walnut trees on it. The first fall I went out and picked up several feed sacks full of black walnuts. We put the bags in the driveway and ran over them for a few days to break the husks off.

Then I tried to crack the nuts. The first nutcracker I broke, it almost killed me. It was one of those lever types and I was leaning on the handle for all I was worth. When the handle broke, I nearly crushed my temple on the corner of the coffee table.

I bought a second, heavier duty lever type and more cautiously tried to apply pressure. At least when the handle on that one broke I was ready and didn't get hurt.

Since then the wildlife gets the nuts - I don't think they can get into them either, but they bury them all over the place and we have a lot of black walnut trees getting to nut bearing age now along the fence rows.

So I could use recommendations for a nut cracker that can handle black walnuts!

[Petrushka]

11. Freezing black walnuts makes them easier to crack. Crack 'em the old way: with a hammer! (eom)

[Denninmi]

15. I bought a Drill Cracker first of November.

Totally AWESOME. Easiest way I've found to crack black walnuts. Pricey but so worth it. I previously bought a Clark's Electric Black Walnut Cracker, which is manual feed, ie, one at a time, and you hold it under the anvil.

This new Drill Cracker has a hopper, you can feed them in several at a time. It was also totally awesome on nuts from the store, everything except for Brazil Nuts, which it mangled (I think due to highly irregular shape).

This was our household Christmas gift to ourselves this year:

http://drill-cracker.com/

[csziggy]

16. I'm not sure I could justify that much for a nut cracker

Maybe one of their hard shell Nutcracker would do the job for us. I wish there were reviews of it.

[Irishonly]

7. I love black walnuts

I am jealous

[trueblue2007]

10. i can not remember ever eating black walnuts before. do they grow in oregon??

[Irishonly]

12. I am not sure

I was raised in Iowa and they grew there. I order them online now.

[pacalo]

8. Hahaaaa!

Good one! And I'm so RELIEVED.

[Grantuspeace]

9. I have two large black walnut trees. But.........

We tried eating the nuts a while back and they tasted terrible. How do you "process" them?

[Arkansas Granny]

13. Black walnuts are absolutely the best to use in banana nut bread, IMO.

They are really a hassle to crack and pick out, however.

[HopeHoops]

14. Butt crack.

Sorry, but that's just what came to mind first.

I know, I'm a pig.

[Ptah]

17. I'll never understand why you are proud of that.

[HopeHoops]

18. Self-deprecating humor.