Shelling Walnuts

A couple of moths ago Mike and I collected a lot of walnuts in the shell. They are nice and dry now and I have started to shell them. It is a nice feeling knowing that I have enough nuts (ha ha) in the house for the whole year and they were free. 

Of course, I do have to shell them but it only took me 45 minutes (while listening to NPR, talking on the phone and having tea ) to do 4 cups of shelled nuts. And it is easy to do. All you need is a small cutting board and a hammer. Take the nut pointy side down and give it a couple of medium wackes. I even get most of the nuts out in full halves. Yippee! 

Now I can make all sorts of nut cookies. One of my favorites is basically just a chocolate chip cookie with out the chocolate and with extra nuts.