National Caramel Popcorn day

So, in honor of National Caramel Popcorn day, I thought I'd search out the yummiest looking, sounding and tasting recipe for Caramel popcorn on the web for several reasons. 1) I have not made caramel popcorn myself, 2) I don't have a recipe for caramel popcorn and 3) my mother always told me to share.

So, here's my "share" and hopefully good deed for the day. Maybe I'll post a new recipe each day for national food holidays. There is always one, you'd be totally surprised how many and what weird foods are out there that have a "national day". Who makes this stuff up anyway?

Cracker Jacks Caramel Corn Recipe

Ingredients:

1/2 cup unpopped popcorn kernels

1-12oz can of Spanish Peanuts

1 1/2 cups brown sugar

1/3 cup light corn syrup

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup butter

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 large cookie sheet, greased

Directions:

In an air popper, pop the kernels according to your machine’s manual. My machine only allows you to pop 1/3 cups at a time, so make sure you follow your machine’s capacity instructions. You should have almost 4 quarts of popped popcorn using 1/2 cup of kernels. Dump the popcorn and the Spanish peanuts in a clean tall paper grocery bag. Preheat oven to 300 degrees F. In a medium sauce pan, combine brown sugar, corn syrup, butter,and salt over medium heat and allow to gently boil for 5 minutes stirring occasionally. Turn off heat and stir in baking soda and vanilla. Carefully and immediately pour caramel sauce into the paper grocery bag and stir the sauce, popcorn, and nuts with a wooden spoon until the sauce is evenly distributed. Take the popcorn mixture and evenly scatter it between both greased cookie sheets. Bake for 45 minutes, stirring the popcorn every 15 minutes. Allow to cool and break up the pieces (if desired). Store in zip lock bags or airtight containers. Enjoy! *

*Side note, I changed the recipe to be for 1/2 cup of kernel from the original of 1 cup. I found 1/2 a cup to be ideal. But for a lighter recipe, use a whole cup of kernels and it will not be as sweet.

You can view the entire recipe WITH PHOTOS (yay, love photos) at Savory Sweet Life's blog.

Buon appetito!

Brown Sugar Grilled Salmon

Brown Sugar Grilled Salmon

Monday was a glorious weather day FINALLY. So the hubby and I decided to grill some salmon since 1) it's the only fish I usually will eat, 2) it's the only fish my kids will eat with the exception of gorton's fish sticks (ewww), and 3) it's the only fish I usually will eat.

We bought a lovely slab o' farm raised salmon at the store and took it home. Such a pretty piece of fish it was. I decided to marinate the little bugger even though I've never marinated fish before. I usually reserve marinating for items that come from land lovin' creatures (i.e., pigs, cows, chickens).

Here's the recipe I used and you can adapt this in any manner to suit your tastes. It's super easy, cheap and does NOT need to be marinated for hours on end.


Ingredients

1 Lg. Salmon fillet
1/3 cup Brown Sugar
1/3 cup soy sauce
1/2 tbsp. lime juice
Garlic powder to taste
Salt and Pepper to taste

Mix all ingredients together well. Make sure to taste as you go along, adding more ingredients or other options as you may like. The recipe as I am posting it is sweet with a salty tang at the end of the bite.

Cut the fillet into serving sized pieces. About 3 x 4 inches each. Lay all of the pieces in a dish with at least 3 inch high sides.

Mix all of your ingredients together and pour the marinade over the fish.

Put in the refrigerator for 15-20 minutes. Take out and flip over and return to the refrigerator for another 15-20 minutes.

Preheat your grill on a low heat setting and make sure that you either cover it with aluminum foil or use a griddle insert so that the fish does not flake and fall into the grill.


Once the grill is heated, place the fillets on the grill (or griddle) and cook for approximately 10 minutes per side, checking to make sure the pink color of fillets has turned to a light pinkish white color and the marinade starts to caramelize.

Let me know if you have tried this recipe and leave comments. With future posts I hope to have step by step photos for each recipe.

Buon appetito!