Mason's Sweet Date Appetizer

When I was little my mom and grandmom, Olive, who we called Nanny had us children make these on Thanksgiving day. {probably to keep us busy}

They seem to have origin in a family friend named Mason, who was good pals with my Papa, Chester.

As a tradition I still make them every year.

How wonderful ti will be to continue this with our little daughter next year.

They are very rich and chewy. Usually one is all I can eat. They are delectable.

1. Split the pitted dates (sometimes you can find a split on them already, if not then use a knife to carefully make a slit. Of course, adults should do this for the children before hand)
2. spoon peanut butter into the opening. (This does not have to look neat when children are doing this because the sugar step will hide the mess.) 
3. place a walnut half into the peanut butter bed.
4. roll each piece in granulated sugar.
5. place on a plate or in another container.

•  I used a very small peanut butter jar and it took about half of the jar to finish the dates.
• The bag of dates was an 8 oz. bag.
• While I purchased a 10 oz. bag of shelled walnuts, I used the tiniest handful. 
• a half cup to one cup of sugar in a small bowl is more than enough. This will give room to roll each date individually, and there will be much excess you will be discarding.  

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!

Blessings, Lynette