I'm Spoiled When It Comes to Popcorn!

I admit it...I'm spoiled... at least when it comes to popcorn!  I have had a love affair with popcorn all of my life.  It started when I was a kid.  My mom would pop up the delicious snack on the stove in a saucepan with lid because, back then (caveman times, my children joke), that was the only way you could make it.  Then, along came the microwave.  And, though I love the convenience, nothing tastes quite as good as the old-fashioned method of on the stove.

A couple of years ago we got one of those awesome new movie theaters

in town.  One with a water feature in the lobby, a huge menu of choices for

snacking, and many, many theaters.  I was spoiled, indeed!  But the one thing

they included that sold me most of all was that you were given the power

to butter and flavor your own popcorn! What?!! Yeah...heaven!

At this time I was introduced to this deliciousness....

This comes in many flavors such as white cheddar, butter, ranch (oh my goodness, it's good!), nacho cheese...  yum!  Now, my local Walmart has started selling these too!  I'm so spoiled now, I cannot tolerate just buttered, unflavored popcorn at the movies anymore.  I refuse to visit a theater closer to us because they do not have these powdered flavors!! Snobby, aren't I?! LOL

I am going to give you my wonderful husband's recipe for making "movie theater" worthy popcorn at home in your own kitchen.  Try it...you will thank me.  No, it's not good for you, but it is delicious!

Movie Worthy Theater Popcorn

plain popcorn kernels (we buy the cheapest we can find)

Orville Reddenbacher's Butter Flavored Popcorn Oil 

Pop Kernel Flavoring in your choice of flavor(s)

Vegetable Oil

In a saucepan, pour in just enough vegetable oil to cover the bottom of your pan.  Turn on burner on med-high.  Add a couple of dry popcorn kernels to the pan.  When these start to pop, your oil is hot enough to add the rest of your dry popcorn kernels. The amount varies.  If I want just a good sized bowl of popcorn, I will only add enough kernels to cover the bottom of the saucepan.  If you want more popcorn, add more! Cover with a lid and lightly shake the pan back and forth as the popcorn begins to pop.  Turn the burner down to medium and continue to move pan back and forth.  When popping stops, or slows to a pop between seconds, it is done.  Remove from the stove.  In a bowl, pour 1/4 of your popped corn in and sprinkle with the butter flavored oil.  Sprinkle with popcorn flavoring liberally.  I like to mix ranch and white cheddar together on my popcorn.  Add another 1/4 of the popped corn on top and season with oil and flavorings.  Keep doing this until all the popcorn is in the bowl, seasoned and sprinkled with oil.  Enjoy!

disclaimer:  I was not paid or compensated in any way for this post.  These comments are my own and shared from my own experience using all the products mentioned.

Fun and Disaster With Fondant

Fondant is so cool!  I really enjoy working with it.  If you have never tried it, you must!  It's like playdough for cakes! :)  I have worked with Wilton Fondant a few times.  It is almost fool-proof and so easy to tint in colors.  My first and second attempts with Wilton Fondant were very successful.  I have been quite popular at making belly cakes for ladies having baby showers.  Here's my two belly cakes:

I got brave and decided that I was ready to jump and make homemade marshmallow fondant.  The ingredients are simple and straight-forward.  You only need a microwave and lots of muscle.  But... boy did it whoop me...whoop me good. LOL

I shed a few tears on that project.  I read all sorts of blogs and watched video online giving advice for working with homemade fondant.  I still had a LOT to learn!

I used too much shortening on the countertop and too much on my hands not realizing that it changed the consistency to being too melty.  Even the heat of my hands messed it up!

I learned later that all I had to do was add more confectioners sugar to dry it back out, but at the time, I didn't know that!  I managed to finally slap the cake together.  My granddaughter could of cared less.  She was 1. LOL

One day I will try to make homemade fondant again and I know I will have learned from my mistakes.  But for now...it's Wilton or bust! LOL

Have you ever tried fondant?



Eat Your Veggies -- or at least trick your kids into doing it!

How many times have you wished that you could sneak a little more vegetables into your diet?  It's especially difficult when it comes to kids.  There are those blessed few of children who love any and all vegetables.  But let's face it...we all could probably eat more.  Right?

Well, the following is a chili recipe that was given to me by my babysitter some 20 years ago!  She ran an in-home daycare and her fee fed our kids hot meals EVERY day!  Not macaroni and cheese and hot dogs, mind you, but she fed them real meals.  Even 20 years ago she was concerned about feeding them good, nutrious meals.  And, she would "sneak" in veggies sometimes.  This recipe is one example!

Crockpot Veggie Chili

2 lbs lean hamburger

1 onion (chopped fine)

seasonings (Mrs. Dash (original), Salt, Pepper

1 large can/bottle V-8 Cocktail Juice (secret ingredient)

2 cans pinto beans (drained)

1 package chili seasoning (she used mild for the kids)

shredded cheese

crackers (optional)

Cook ground beef (add seasoning with the meat) with chopped onions in a skillet until done.  Drain and rinse fat off with hot water and add to crockpot.  Pour in V8 on top of meat.  Add drained pinto beans.  Sprinkle in chili seasoning.  Cook on low for 4 hours.  Serve with shredded cheese and crackers.  Since all ingredients are pre-cooked, you can also make this quickly on the stovetop instead of the crockpot.  Basically add all ingredients the same as above and cook until hot.

This really is a delicious, mild chili with no vegetable taste.  But the V8 makes an excellent tomato base for the chili and gives the nutrients that makes V8 so healthy!  We've enjoyed this recipe for 20 years or so and I know you will too!

My Cake Balls/Truffles

Okay...here they are in all their glory! And, so far, the general concensus is that they taste great! :)

Bakerella Cake Balls and an Epic FAIL

My son told me the other day that the word "epic" has been talked about being removed from the dictionary because it is an overused word. What?! You can't remove a word because it's overused. Isn't that a form of flattery?

Well, the word epic describes what I did this weekend.

I made, for the first time, Bakerella's famous cake balls found here.  I'd been wanting to try them for some time. I have seen them all over the internet and blog world. So, if everyone's making them, they can't be too hard, right? Hmmm...

photo compliments of http://www.txcn.com/

Well, I followed directions to the letter and they "the cake balls" turned out just fine. The problem was when I got to the dipping them in chocolate/almond bark part.

This turned out to be quite messy and difficult. I don't have a double boiler so I "made" one with a bowl sitting on the edge of a small saucepan filled with boiling water. While it worked, I got multiple steam burns. Owww!

Okay...back to the epic fail part. I bought a package of vanilla candy melt. According to everyone's posted info., one package should sufficiently cover 30 cake balls. Well, I guess I rolled mine too small because I ended up with 51 cake balls!! Needless to say, I ran out of vanilla candy melt. No worries, I thought. I'll just melt some milk chocolate chips. I only had a 1/2 bag of those, so, of course, I ran out. ((sigh)) I found a couple of small bars of vanilla candy melt in my baking cabinet. When I melted it, it still didn't look like enough. So...my creative mind thought,"hey! I have some left over glace' in the fridge from my valentine shortbread and fancy sugar cookies." I scraped up a spoonful of the red glace' and added it to the melted vanilla candy melt. Oh my. Do NOT do this. I cannot stress enough here! It was one hot mess. Whatever chemical reaction happened, ruined the candy melt. It got very dry, first, which I am sure was from the powdered sugar in the glace' and then Ms. Brilliant, here, added a dab of water. What happened? It all wadded up together, after turning a pretty shade of pink (which I liked, by the way) and separated leaving it a wad in quite a bit of watered down glace.'  I almost took a picture of it, but it was too sad!  There would be no dipping with this mess! It clumped together like wax! What was I thinking?! 
I ended up putting the last 8 naked cake balls in a ziplock and freezing them and tossing the pink mess in the trash. Lord!

I will post a pic of the cake balls tomorrow. They actually turned out alright. Not as pretty as Bakerella's but, hey, she's done it longer than I have! I had visions of pretty, smooth cake balls. That did not happen. My candy melt ones look like little tiny scoops of ice cream. Not too bad, but not what I was going for. Not quite sure why they were lumpy. I stirred the stuff repeatedly. I have steam burns on my fingers to prove it! The kids said they tasted great. I tried one. Not my cup of tea. I am not a raw dough kinda person. I know these aren't raw dough but they reminded me of it, texture wise, and I just couldn't eat them.

Have you ever tried to make these? Any words of advice on the dipping part? What worked for you?

Dill Salad - Recipe Linky Party!!

 My all time favorite salad in all the world is one that I discovered on Land O' Lakes website.  It is called Dilled Garden Salad.  I discovered the recipe a couple of years ago while looking for something to fix for a summer get-together with friends.  I LOVE mozzarella cheese and I LOVE kalamata olives and look for any way possible to use them!




Photo courtesy of Land O' Lakes



My fellow blogger friend, Brooke, at All Things Thrifty is doing a fun "all things delicious" linky party.  I thought I'd share this delicious recipe for a salad with everyone!

The Recipe:



2 medium tomatoes, cut into bite-sized wedges

1 small cucumber, thinly sliced

1 small onion, cut in half, thinly sliced

1/2 cup pitted kalamata olives

4 ounces Mozzarella Cheese, cubed 1/2 inch

Vinaigrette

1/4 cup vegetable or olive oil

2 tablespoons white wine vinegar

1 to 2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill weed* (or use 1 tsp dried dill - which I do because fresh is expensive and I won't use it up and it'll go bad)

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon sugar

1/4 teaspoon pepper

Directions

Place all salad ingredients except cheese cubes in large serving bowl; toss lightly.


Whisk together all vinaigrette ingredients in small bowl. Pour over salad; toss well. Refrigerate at least 4 hours to blend flavors. Stir in cheese just before serving.


I have made this the night before, leaving the cheese out until right before serving and that works great too.  The flavors in this salad with that vinaigrette are amazing!


Let me know if you try it and what you think!  I think you will love it as much as I do!

Valentines Baking Craz!!

I've been in a baking mood!  This is really nothing new for me.  I love to cook and I love to bake!  My family aren't huge on sweets, so baking means fixing something decadent and taking it to work so my co-workers can indulge!

Valentines is tomorrow, and though it is not really a holiday my husband and I celebrate (we show our love all year long), I do love to decorate for it and bake for it!

Yesterday, I spent a gruelling, but well worth it, afternoon preparing a new sugar cookie dough recipe I saw recently on ourbestbites.com.  Her recipe was pretty simple but it managed to burn out my hand mixer in the process! LOL

I think this is the 2nd time I've burned out a mixer on sugar cookie dough.  Is there a trend here?

Her recipe was delicious!  I am not a fan of sugar cookies that are tasteless or that have lemon flavoring to them.  Her recipe used almond flavoring, not only in the dough but in the glace' icing! Yummy!!

It was a long, tedious process of mixing, cutting out, and then icing and letting the icing dry to add additional decorations but it was well worth it!

I think they're pretty when they are packaged up to give out at the office... what do you think?

I also made a new recipe from Land O'Lakes.  It was originally called White Chocolate Chip Shortbread.  I realized that I forgot to pick up white chocolate chips when I got groceries, so instead, I used regular mini-chocolate chips.  This recipe was pretty easy and fun to make.  I used some of my pretty rose colored glace' left over from yesterday's cookies to drizzle over the top.

What have you been baking for tomorrow's holiday of love?! :)