Sunday, February 15, 2015

Kettle Corn

Yummy note: This month I got Debbi Does Dinner Healthy! Yeah! She is our wonderful host in our group C with the Secret Recipe Club, so this was fun to spotlight one of her recipes since I've never had her blog before. Debbi featured my chocolate brownie bites a few months ago during our Cookie Carnival! I wanted to really try for one of her healthier recipes, as she does a lot of great lower calorie (under 500 calories) recipes. Snacks are always our downfall here, and we like to indulge on them, so I had that in mind when looking. However, don't let Debbi fool you, as she has some serious guilty food treats on her site. The recipe I chose, feels like it should be under both categories, as it is so delicious, seriously we've made it a handful of times already since I first found this recipe on her site! So a toss-up between the "healthier" snacks to try from Debbi's site was either these cinnamon pretzels which I got in a holiday plate one year and was like, "oh, these are good, and simple, I so got to make these sometime" or this sweet and salty kettle corn. Then I ran across this post, and totally took me back to my childhood days, when my mom would let me dip apples in cinnamon-sugar for a treat. Then, want to talk crazy food, the not so healthier side, that needs a shout out because I've never heard of this before -- Twinkie Pie! So thank you Debbi for so many options to choose from... but the real winner was homemade kettle corn!  Make sure sure to stop by Debbi's blog Debbi Does Dinner Healthy! and say, Hi and thank her for all the work she does with hostessing the group C Secret Recipe Club.



Kettle Corn 
Original recipe here: Debbi Does Dinner Healthy

Ingredients: 
4 tbsp. coconut oil 
1/4 cup white sugar 
1/2 cup popcorn kernels 
Salt, to taste 


Directions: 
Add the coconut oil, sugar, and popcorn kernels to a large pan with a lid. Heat pan over high heat, once the coconut oil starts to melt, give a nice stir to coat the popcorn kernels. Quickly, then cover that pan! Note, seriously, cover it with a lid or else you will be sorry. Flying popcorn everywhere, not to mention that coconut oil gets pretty hot and can burn your hand or whatever else those flying popcorn kernels can hit.  So once the kernels start to pop, with the lid on, shake the pan every few seconds to allow even heating. The shaking of the pan, ensures you don't have burnt popcorn on the bottom of your pan. When the popcorn popping has slowed, it is almost done and you can remove it  from the heat. Finish with a dash of salt to taste. Then dig into that big bowl of crunchy sweet and salty popcorn!
4 simple ingredients = easy snack! 

Yummy yummy kettle corn... those brownish-yellow spots on the popcorn were the best.. like bits of caramel-like crunchy sugar...

Somebody gave the big thumbs up for mom on making this healthier, sweet snack!
Oh, and did we mention it is dairy-free treat, too! yeah, mom!