Last November, I found myself hosting a humungous group of people for Thanksgiving dinner. Ask me if I was having a conniption over the whole thing. Come on, just ask me. Don’t ask! Actually, everything turned out pretty swell and, thankfully, that one guest who totally fell asleep at the dinner table didn’t begin to snore. Tender mercies.
Anywho! I wanted my guests to receive some sort of party favor on their plates when they sat down to dinner as a “Gee, thanks for coming, guys!” kind of a deal, so I was on the prowl for something cute, something tasty, something eazzzzzzzy (remember, I was already having that conniption; I didn’t need more stress). Well! Since I love to mix salty and sweet things together (that combo just floats my boat), and since nuts kind of go with the whole Thanksgiving/pilgrim/Captain John Smith vibe, I thought that the hyped up sugared cinnamon almonds I found on this site through Pinterest would be absolutely perfect! Guess what? They were a hit! And the best part? They were as easy as pumpkin pie to make! I found the adorable gobble labels at this site, and since I didn’t want to use a bazillion dollars worth of 
colored ink by printing the labels myself, I converted the design into a jpeg and shipped it off to my local photo store where they were printed up for less than ten cents each. SCORE! In my book, this is totally a Pinterest PROP!
Preheat oven to 250 degrees. Line a large (11X17-inch) rimmed baking sheet with foil and lightly spray with cooking spray.
In a large bowl, beat the egg white until stiff peaks form. Add the water and vanilla and beat again until stiff. Add the almonds to the mixture and stir gently to coat the almonds with the egg white mixture. In a small bowl, mix the brown sugar, salt and cinnamon. Add this mixture to the almonds and stir gently to mix well. Pour the almonds out onto the prepared baking sheet and carefully spread them out into a somewhat even layer. Place the baking sheet in the oven and bake for about an hour, stirring/flipping every 15 minutes, until the almonds look and feel dry. To check to see if the almonds were done, I carefully picked one up in my fingers and when I pressed around it, I didn’t get any wet sugar on my hands. The coating on the almond felt hard and crunchy. Cool completely before serving or packaging.
