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Over 130 recipes for you to peruse - and more coming all the time!.
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I have a confession to make – I love popcorn.
Love. It.
So I make my own. Beloved hates the smell of microwave popcorn and the stuff just isn’t good for you, on top of being rather expensive. And popping your own isn’t hard at all.
I like Orville Redenbacher; it just seems to pop up bigger and fluffier, much more so than any other brand I’ve tried, including “gourmet” popcorns. I’ve also started popping it in clarified butter as opposed to vegetable oil. Clarified butter is butter that’s been melted and had all of the water and milk solids removed so it has a much higher smoking point, although not as high as vegetable oils, so you do have to be careful when using it. I clarify my own, but you can usually find it in the “foreign” food section of the grocery store, where it’s labeled “ghee.” It’s a bit on the expensive side, so if you can you should clarify your own. It lasts a very long time – longer than regular butter – and while I’ve read that you can store it at room temperature just like vegetable oil, I keep mine refrigerated just to be on the safe side. It gives the popcorn a wonderful flavor and bonus! You don’t really need to butter it afterwards.
I’ve been making popcorn on the stove for many, many years, so I’ve got a couple of tips for you:
- Don’t use a popcorn popper – too much steam accumulates inside, and that makes for soggy popcorn. Even the types with ventilation holes traps too much steam. Make it on the stove.
- If you’re going to butter it, use REAL butter. Not margarine, and especially not “diet” margarine, which contains a lot of water. Water is the kiss of death to popcorn.
If you’re feeling really adventurous, you can throw in ¼ cup of sugar when the popcorn starts popping and make Kettle Corn, but you must be diligent in shaking the pan to ensure that the sugar doesn’t stick to the bottom of the pan and burn.
The amounts given here will make 2 quarts of popcorn, but if you want to make more, use a large, heavy bottomed stockpot and make sure there’s enough clarified butter or oil to cover the bottom of the pan, then add just enough popcorn to cover the bottom in a thin, single layer.
Popcorn
makes 2 quarts
3 tablespoons clarified butter or vegetable oil
1/3 cup popcorn kernels
a teaspoon or so of salt
1/4 cup sugar, optional (for Kettle Corn)
2 tablespoons melted, but slightly cooled, butter, optional (adding hot butter to hot popcorn will wilt it)
Heat the clarified butter or vegetable oil in a 3-quart saucepan over medium heat. Add 3 or 4 popcorn kernels and cover the pan.
When the kernels pop, add the 1/3 cup of kernels in an even layer, then add the salt. Give it a good shake to coat the popcorn kernels in the butter/oil and to distribute the salt. Cover the pan again, but leave the lid slightly ajar to allow the steam to escape. (I’ve read instructions that say you should remove the pan from the heat for 30 seconds – this supposedly brings all of the other kernels to a near-popping temperature so that when they are returned to the stove they all pop at about the same time, but I’ve never noticed any difference. It’s your call.)
When the popcorn begins popping pretty constantly, gently shake the pan by moving it back and forth over the burner keeping the lid slightly ajar, if at all possible, to let the steam from the popcorn escape. Once the popping slows to several seconds between pops, immediately remove the pan from the heat, remove the lid, and dump the popcorn into a wide bowl. Drizzle with the melted, but slightly cooled butter if desired (but it won’t need a lot if you popped it in the clarified butter).
Consume immediately.
It’s amazing what you can do with those three things.
No, there will be no recipe today, although I almost always post one on Mondays. But I didn’t really cook this weekend, for more than one reason. First, Beloved had to extend his business trip to California and won’t be home until Tuesday. Secondly, Saturday afternoon, The Young One came up to me and said, “Mom? Um, there’s this project I, um, have to do for science? And it’s, um, due sorta, um, on Monday.”
Swell.
The project was to do a poster board-type thing about an element from the periodic table. Yeah…just edge-of-your-seat type of stuff, especially when it’s a totally obscure particularly well-known element like Rhenium (Re, atomic weight 75, atomic mass 186). Nickel-based superalloys for the use in jet engines contain up to 6% of rhenium, making jet engine construction the largest use for the element, with chemical industry catalytic uses being next-most important. Because of the low availability relative to demand, rhenium is among the most expensive industrial metals, with a price average of 2009, exceeding US$6,000 per kilogram.
HEY! You can wake up now!
The project entailed listing the name, symbol, atomic weight and mass as well as the properties and practical applications of the element on a 10″ x 10″ (yes, 10 inch by 10 inch) piece of white board that MUST include a 3-dimensional rendering representing the element or it’s use(s).
If anyone cares to bitch-slap The Young One’s science teacher (who I think graduated from college 3½ hours ago) for assigning my son a very rare element whose only real commercial use is in jet engines or as a catalyst for processing unleaded gasoline and which MUST be rendered in 3D on this postage stamp-sized media, I will be more than happy to hold your coat. And buy you a steak dinner.
Oh, yeah – did I mention this was the first weekend in four months with temperatures in the 40s and sunny, blue skies? A weekend I spent braving the sweating, frenzied masses at the only (abysmally understaffed) craft store in town? Where I spent $37 on this project? Then spent an entire day of said gorgeous, sunny weekend with my loving offspring, whose interest in the project was remarkably absolutely non-existent, trying to figure out just what we were going to do with $37 worth of cardboard, poster board, glue, glitter, paint, Styrofoam and markers?
Well, we got through it, and if I may say so myself, we might not have a clue as to scale and construction, but for a couple of clueless klutzes, I think we did a half decent job.
I mean, really – could you make half a jet turbine engine out of poster board, glitter paint and glue?
Gee, I hope I get a good grade on it…
Well, no reason not to post my pictures for Project365 when I can, especially on the weekends when I don’t really blog.
This morning I was futzing around with the background portion of my light box and natural light coming in from the window, because the sun! Shining! Three days in a row! It makes me all sorts of giddy, so I took a couple of shots of a carton of locally raised, organic brown eggs I had in the fridge.
Because I’m just exciting like that.
I have several “relevant” posts in the works (i.e. I’m actually going to tell a story for a change!), but none that are finished just yet. And if I don’t get cooking, I’m not going to have any recipes to post, either (see? This is what Beloved gets for being out of town for more than a week – we eat Popsicles cereal for dinner every damn night).
But the sun is shining and the snow is melting – about damn time; I feel like I’m taking my life in my hands every time I drive around a corner with a huge snowdrift – and more importantly, the geese are migrating. I can finally start to believe that yes, Spring will really soon be here.
It better, or I may just finally go off my rocker and prove what I’m sure you’ve all suspected for some time now.
And because I’m feeling MUCH better, I’ve decided to jump back on the Project365 wagon and have taken my first picture (inspiration! Finally!). I got the cyclorama set up, and took this:
Our Jokers and Pegs game. It is a ton of fun – so much so that when we went to visit Jolly and The G Man recently, she requested we bring it with us; apparently we’ve got The Chef hooked on it as well.
The G Man enjoyed playing, too.
I think you got a crap hand, Grandpa…
Here, play this one!
Okay, enough of the cute grandson. Have a lovely weekend, y’all.
Today’s post/recipe is short, sweet and easy – in every sense of the word.
Carrots are good. Carrots are tasty. Carrots are naturally sweet.
Carrots are even better when smothered in something that will make them sweeter. Unless, of course, you’re a picky 15-year-old boy who will only eat carrots raw. But does that surprise anyone who reads my recipes? I didn’t think so.
But I digress.
The secret to good glazed carrots is not to overcook them. Actually, that’s the secret to cooking any vegetable, but it’s particularly bad for glazed carrots. Overcook glazed carrots and you’re stuck with a pot full of expensive baby food, depending on how much you paid for the carrots and what you glazed them with.
For this recipe I glazed them with honey, mostly because I had some Tupelo honey on hand (Tupelo honey has a strong, distinctive flavor that marries well with the carrots without overwhelming them) but you can substitute plain clover honey, an equal amount of pure maple syrup or even brown sugar, although I find brown sugar makes them a little too sweet.
At any rate, this a nice, quick side dish not only for those nights when you’re peering into the refrigerator thinking, “Egads, what am I going to make with the meatloaf this time??” but when you’re serving a main course that’s little more elegant/involved and don’t want to have to spend too much time on the sides.
Note: You can glaze the carrots in the same pan you cooked them in if you want to cut down on the cleanup, but the honey and butter will form a glaze more quickly if the second step is done in a wide, shallow skillet where the carrots won’t be crowded, which will help keep them from overcooking.
Honey Glazed Carrots
serves 6
1 pound baby carrots
OR
1 pound mature carrots, scraped and sliced thickly on the bias
1 teaspoon salt
1 to 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 tablespoons Tupelo honey (increase the amount by a tablespoon or two if using a milder honey such as clover)
freshly ground black pepper to taste
Bring a quart of water to boil over high heat; add the salt and then the carrots. Lower the heat slightly and cook for 3 – 5 minutes, until tender crisp. Drain.
In a wide, heavy skillet, melt the butter over medium heat and add the carrots; stir to coat. Drizzle the carrots with the honey and increase the heat slightly and continue to cook for another 3 – 5 minutes until the honey and butter thickens and the carrots are nicely glazed. Season to taste with the pepper.
Printable version (requires Adobe Reader)