If you’ve ever driven through a small town in Georgia, you no doubt have seen signs for boiled peanuts along the roadside. I’ve found that they’re a love-hate thing; people are rarely undecided about boiled peanuts! I include the recipe here because I absolutely love them. When I make them at home in Oklahoma, it takes me back to our family vacation trips to Florida, when we’d stop on the roadside and eat the warm peanuts in the car. Yum!

　　

Ingredients

makes 10 cups

　　5 pounds fresh green peanuts

　　Salt

　　

Step 1

Wash the peanuts and put them in a 3-quart stockpot. Add enough water to barely float the peanuts, measuring the amount of water required. Add 2/3 cup salt for each gallon of water used. Stir to distribute the salt. Bring the water to a boil and reduce the heat to medium. Cover the pan and cook the peanuts for 1 1/2 hours, or until the shelled peanuts are tender. Add water during cooking if the peanuts are no longer floating in the liquid. Remove from the heat and cool in the cooking liquid.

　　

Step 2

The peanuts will become saltier as they sit in the liquid, so taste them at intervals as they are cooling. When they are as salty as you like them, drain the peanuts (do not rinse) and store them in the refrigerator or freezer. (If the boiled peanuts are too salty, soak them in plain water to dilute the saltiness.)

　　

From Gwen

Step 3

Use green peanuts for this. Dried nuts in the shell are just not as tender.

　　Reprinted with permission from Georgia Cooking in an Oklahoma Kitchen: Recipes from My Family to Yours by Trisha Yearwood with Gwen Yearwood and Beth Yearwood Bernard. Copyright © 2008 by Trisha Yearwood. Published by Crown Publishing Group. All Rights Reserved.Trisha Yearwood is a three-time Grammy-award winning country music star and the author of the bestselling cookbook Georgia Cooking in an Oklahoma Kitchen. She is married to megastar Garth Brooks.