the latest estimates for the 91 pecan
crop across Oklahoma appears to be
somewhat average well you're probably
asking yourself what is considered
average well that's around 14 million
pounds but keep in mind too that
approximately 90% of the production is
from seedling or native trees with the
remainder from paper shale or improved
varieties many of you will also be
harvesting pecans during the months of
November and December
however nut quality begins to
deteriorate
soon after the pecan drops on the ground
and that's why you really need to begin
harvesting them just as soon as you can
also prompt harvest can help protect the
nuts from any predators and research
also shows that any nuts remaining on
the ground for more than a week can
greatly reduce their quality
well let's join barb now who will give
us some additional use and storage ideas
come on season's been on us for a couple
of weeks now and whether you've got your
own trees and you're harvesting from the
ground or whether you're going to the
grocery store to buy them one of the
challenges all of us have is getting
them out of the shell there are several
things that can make that's a little
easier and most of them involve water or
all of them involve water what we want
to try to do is soften the shell up a
little bit so that it's easier to get it
out now what you can do is soak them
overnight in cold water then drain them
on paper towels and go ahead and use
them another thing that you can try if
you don't want to decay the entire night
to taking care of the shells is to put
them in boiling water with just enough
to cover them and bring it to a boil and
let them boil for five to eight minutes
depending on the kind of shell you have
and whether it's one of the varieties
that's real thick then again drain them
and go ahead and use them from then if
you'd like to add a little bit of salt
to them and then this does add just a
small amount you can add about a little
bit of salt to the water as you boil
them and that will increase the
saltiness of the pecan inside that will
the weather your night you do that will
depend on what you're going to use them
for if you're going to put them in the
freezer I wouldn't do that because the
salt will increase the speed of
rancidity so whether you're putting in
the freezer refrigerator them if you're
not going to use them right away go
ahead and and boil them in or soak them
in just plain water another thing you
can do is add about three cups of pecans
and one cup of water put them in the
microwave for one to three minutes again
depending on the thickness of the shell
of the pecan that you're using and that
will again soften them up now you may
find that the pecan meat itself also
gets a little bit softened doing this so
you may have to dry them out in order to
make them usable for the purpose that
you have in mind the pecans are high in
fat and so they do tend to become rancid
very quickly if when you crack them the
pecan meat is very dark a good chance
that the pecan has already started to
turn rancid once that happens there's
nothing you can do to make it revert to
the other way some people have tried
boiling the pecan meats and water hoping
that that will take some of the the
rancid flavor away and it may in fact do
that because it takes away some of the
fat which will go out into the water as
it boils
however the pecan flavor is also in that
fat so that once you remove the fat if
you had a low-fat pecan for instance
you'd have very little flavor because
that's where the flavor is is in the fat
content now this
of pecans will vary depending on the
form you have in shell will keep the
longest and the more you break that down
from the impact shell the way it came
off the tree the shorter the storage
time is going to be if you have enough
freezer space the the longest way
they're going to keep is frozen in shell
the next choice for most of us is going
to be shelled in the freezer if they're
halves they'll keep longer than if
they're chopped they'll keep longer as
chopped then as that is ground basically
you reduce storage time by two about 1/3
to 1/4 of the original in the freezer
the pecans if they're wrapped in
moisture vapor proof packaging they
should keep even chopped for about a
year the larger pieces may keep up to 3
years if you've got your freezer at zero
degrees Fahrenheit pecans fit in the
foods that we choose in lots of
different ways we have a couple of
examples here we have a pecan bread that
has coconut and pecans and pineapple in
it we also have a chicken salad with
pecans the recipes are available from
your County Extension Office or you can
write Oklahoma gardening for Oklahoma
gardening this is Barbara brown we hope
you enjoyed this video it's part of our
OK gardening classics youtube channel
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