bacon kettle corn

I said it! BACON. KETTLE. CORN. oh yes. yes indeedy. You see, over the weekend I had some fresh kettle corn from some dude in a parking lot. I always forget how great that stuff is! Not as sweet and sticky as caramel corn..it's crisp and has a bit of salt to it and just enough sweet...gosh darn addicting is what it is.

"I need to figure out how to make this glorious snack," says I. So I consulted the handy booklet that was included with my Whirley Pop and sure enough there was a recipe for "sweet glaze popcorn" which sounded right on.

A little later, I was checking out some links I had saved in regards to different and fun ways to use my bacon. Bacon caramels and pork candy are truly inspired recipes, and I will probably try them both someday. The one that really got me thinking, however, was this bacon popcorn. Sounds good as is, but with those sweet bacon recipes on my mind, along with my urge to make kettle corn, the idea to make bacon kettle corn came naturally.


Basically, I cut some thick slices of the bacon into small bites, fried them until they were crispy, and poured the resulting grease into the popcorn popper. Then I added a little veg oil to supplement it (about 6 or 7 tablespoons of oil all-together...drippings and other oil combined), some regular sugar (4 tablespoons), brown sugar (approx. 3 tablespoons) and unpopped popcorn (2/3 cup). I also put the bacon pieces in there, and whirled it until it all popped. Easy!


Wowsers! this was some crispy, salty/sweet goodness!

the night of a thousand leftovers

Last night was all about using up stuff. First, I cut up some corn cheddar jalapeño mini-muffins I had made over the weekend, and baked them in a 275-degree oven until they were crunchy. These flavorful croutons will likely become a cornbread stuffing this weekend.


For dinner I had popcorn. Don’t laugh! Popcorn is one of my favorite things to eat for dinner, and I often have it when Jack is not home. Over the summer I got a Whirley-Pop popcorn popper from Goodwill (brand new!) and it has improved my popcorn greatly. I highly recommend one to anyone who loves popcorn. Now, even though the Whirley-Pop comes with a recipe booklet, I always shunned flavored popcorn. I’m a purist. I love it with butter and salt, period. However, we had some garlic Parmesan butter in the fridge that Jack had whipped up so my mom and I could have garlic bread the other night. I decided to try that instead of regular butter. It was scrumptious, and felt more like a dinner.





Thirdly, I used the rest of the bananas we got on Bananas Foster night to make good ol’ banana bread. I started with this recipe from Dr. Weil (it was the first one I found without eggs…I only had one egg at home), and added some things (My notes in italics.)

Ingredients

3 very ripe bananas (I used 4-2 big and 2 small)
½ cup honey (I also added about ¼ cup of maple syrup)
3 tablespoons expeller-pressed canola oil, plus a little more for oiling the loaf pan (I used a little less oil and added some full fat plain Greek yogurt I had in the fridge…about ½ cup, and I used butter to grease the pan)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 ½ cups whole-wheat pastry flour (I just had regular AP flour. I added about 1/3 cup more to make up for the extra banana, yogurt and maple syrup liquid-ness)
1 ½ teaspoons baking soda (I used almost 2)
¼ teaspoon salt
¾ cup chopped walnuts or pecans
(I also added about 1/3 cup of dark rum…)

Instructions
1. Heat the oven to 350° F. Lightly oil a loaf pan. 2. Mash the bananas and mix with the honey, canola oil and vanilla extract.

3. Stir together the whole-wheat pastry flour, baking soda and salt. Add the nuts.

4. Blend the two mixtures and spoon into a lightly oiled loaf pan. Bake for 40 minutes, or until center is set.

I made one loaf and 2 little individual muffins. It turned out moist and I love the flavor the maple syrup imparted. I baked the loaf a little too long, and its bottom is a bit dark…my coworkers don’t seem to mind.