In my freezer I have 5 or 6 bags of walnuts. I don't think I can ever use 5 or 6 bags of walnuts (although I have to confess, with the amount of cookbooks I have, I should be looking for recipes to help do so). But I am very glad that these bags are sitting in the freezer and very happy for making the most recent French Friday recipe, since it let me use some of the walnuts.
My family had a walnut ranch, so growing up - at least for me - meant raising walnuts. We were lucky and got to have all sorts of livestock and all the other items you'd think of on a farm. But the main crop was walnuts, English walnuts...that had been grafted onto a Black walnut tree base. I remember driving a tractor and not having enough weight to push down the clutch so having to jump off the driver seat and hope that all my weight would be enough to push the clutch down enough so I could shove the tractor into the next gear. I was the first of my family that left the ranch, but now we all have but my parents still get to collect some of the walnuts that are still harvested...not off our trees but off the trees from my grandparent's ranch.
There have been a lot of years since we had our farm, and even more since I was having to help take care of it. But every year I seem to have the good fortune to be able to simply open up a freezer door and see neatly stacked (and solid as a brick,since Mom is very diligent with the vacuum sealer) a connection to what sometimes seems very far away, home. So, while I don't cook with them often enough, it is very nice to know that a piece of my past is waiting for me.
So, while the flan was not my favorite...it was comforting to make. And I have to admit, some of the lack in the recipe may have been my own failure to add enough salt. When salt was added the flavor definitely popped much more.
I thought this was very good, but mine could have used a little more salt, also.
Debbie
The thing about walnuts is that they just seem to appear when you least expect it. Falling from the sky and hitting you in the head when you visit a friend's house, for example. Or this weekend, while repotting my lime tree that seems to have no desire to live -- low and behold there's a walnut in several inches down in the dirt. I certainly didn't put it there (and doubt it had any role in the tree's lack of desire to live). Perhaps a squirrel thought it was a good hiding place? Or a small child?
Anyhow, 'tis the season for piles and piles of difficult to open nuts and cheap nutcrackers!
PS: We you forced as a child to shell all of those damned walnuts? I presume there's some sort of ingenious and patented contraption that takes care of them on an industrial scale?
PSS: Is there any use for a black walnut?
PSSS: Your flan looks really tasty.