OK,

New Orleans Pralines:

Ingredients

3 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups packed light brown sugar
1 can PET milk
pinch of salt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
4 1/2 tablespoons of butter
2 to 4 cups of pecan pieces (I prefer 2, less nuts per praline)

(Slowly) Boil the Sugar, Brown Sugar, Pet milk, and Salt until you reach the Soft Ball stage, stirring very often. (I'll explain later)

Add the Butter, Vanilla, and Pecans. Remove from heat and beat until mixture starts to thicken. Now the tricky part. Drop them as fast as you can onto parchment paper.

If you take too long, the pralines will thicken in the pot and won't spread properly. Not a real big deal, cause you can just eat those yourself. They taste perfect, they're just ugly lumps rather than looking like pralines are supposed to look.

OK, soft ball stage means that if you drop the mixture into a glass of water, the praline will for a soft, but solid ball. If it spreads when it hits the bottom of the glass, keep going. If you cook them too long, the'll start to make the pralines harder, like a brittle. Getting the temperature right is the toughest part of any candy making. It may take a few tries to get it right. If your pralines never get hard, you didn't boil them long enough. Just scrape that off and put it in a jar. Tastes great over ice cream.

For a good explanation of candy temperature stages, see Here

Oh, and the reason I say boil slowly is mainly in the beginning. It's easy to have the heat turned too high causing the sugar and milk to boil over. VEEERY messy. By slowly raising the temp, you can avoid this problem.