Saturday, December 26, 2009

Pillowcases coming soon!

I took pictures for a step-by-step tutorial of some easy pillowcases on Christmas Eve. Then on Christmas morning, David grabbed the camera, saw that the memory card was full and erased a bunch of pictures, starting with the pillowcases. >:-( So I will be adding that tutorial when I get another pillowcase made, which should be this week. My 6 year old, Jenna, has been asking for one made out of some frog fabric forever.

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Peppermint Bark Popcorn


This recipe came from the girls at Our Best Bites and it is seriously good. I made it last year and it was a huge hit. I give it two thumbs up!

Caramel Popcorn

Today marks the first day of Christmas Candy making for me. I have a whole list of things to make and am going to be posting the recipes as I go. Yay!


If today had a theme, it would be popcorn. I bought a popcorn popper at Walmart just for the occasion! I love it already! I started with the caramel popcorn.





Ingredients:

1 1/4 c. popcorn kernals -This was two and a half batches in the popper. If you don't have a popper, you could use microwave popcorn. You'd probably need three bags or so.

1 c. butter
2 c. brown sugar- I love dark brown sugar instead of light.
1/2 c. light corn syrup
1 t. salt

1 t. vanilla
1 t. baking soda
Preheat your oven to 250.
Spray a big roaster pan with cooking spray. Then pop your popcorn right into it.




Combine the butter, sugar, corn syrup and salt in a 2 qt. sauce pan. You definitely don't want to use anything smaller. Cook it over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until it is melted. Bring it to a boil and then boil it for 5 minutes, stirring constantly. It will look something like this:


Remove from heat and add the vanilla and baking soda. Stir it really fast as it will foam up. Pour that over the popcorn and stir it up to coat the popcorn. You don't have to worry about coating it too evenly it at this point.

Bake at 250 for a total of about 45 minutes. Take it out in 15 minute intervals and give it a good stirring. It will continue to even out the coating as you do so. And be sure to set your timer each time! My mom has a terrible habit of never setting the timer and I learned that from her. Luckily, my husband helped me break free of that.

Spread two big pieces of waxed paper on your counter. After your 45 minutes are up, stir it up one last time and then spread it out on the waxed paper to let it cool.