Posts filed under 'appetizers'
We are popcorn lovers.
When I was a kid, my mother made popcorn in a stove-top pan with a vented lid. The lid had a handle attached to a stirring rod on the bottom of the pan; it had to be stirred constantly while the popcorn popped, even if your arm was being occasionally splattered with hot oil. These can still be bought today and I’m pretty sure Mom still uses one. Dad would sit in his recliner with a large bowl of popcorn on his lap and we kids would meekly ask him to share with us. (He probably remembers this differently!)
For a few years, we even grew our own popcorn - popcorn is simply a different variety of corn, neither feed corn nor sweet corn - and shelled it ourselves, which was hell on the thumbs. Somewhere my folks found a hand-cranked corn sheller, which we thought was fabulous after hand-shelling the stuff, and we would gleefully toss the ears of popcorn into it and watch the cobs come out clean while the kernels fell out of a shoot and into a bucket.
Growing, hand-shelling, and popping your own popcorn on the stove top is a far cry from what most people do today: Buy a box of prepared microwave bags, unwrap the plastic, and toss the paper bag - artificial butter flavoring and other unknown chemicals included - into your microwave. A few short minutes later - VOILA! - you have popcorn, enough for two people if neither of them is very hungry.
Needless to say, THIS IS NOT HOW WE DO IT AT OUR HOUSE. I have a Stir Crazy popcorn popper that suits us just fine.
For a long time, I was buying bagged store-brand popcorn, but found that the quality was rather inconsistent. Sometimes it would pop up nicely, other times it was full of “duds” - unpopped kernels. I switched to good old Orville Redinbacher’s, but boy the cost difference is huge. Orville’s pops very well, often popping the top off of the popper.
A year ago, DH and I decided to get serious about popcorn. It’s our family’s favorite snack and also the cheapest snack we can come up with. We bought a 50 lb. bag of unpopped popcorn at Sam’s club as an experiment. (yes, FIFTY pounds) First, we had no idea if it would even pop decently, second, we didn’t know how long it would take us to consume it. I bought a large plastic container to keep it in and marked the purchase date on the top so we would know how long it took us to use it up (if we ever did). I spent $13 on the popcorn itself, and another $10 on the container.
That $13 worth of popcorn lasted my family 13 months. Can the math get any easier? We spend $1 per month on popcorn. Now, obviously, the popcorn is the cheap part of this snack - it’s the butter that costs money. I estimate that we probably poured $7 of butter each month onto our popcorn and used maybe $1 worth of coconut oil to pop it in. Approximately $9 per month. I make 3 or 4 batches at a time and freeze any leftovers - it’s great straight from the freezer.
Now, I want to compare it to the same amount of microwave popcorn. (Which - do some research - may or may not cause cancer.) I mentioned that we eat a lot of popcorn, right? I figure each month, the amount we eat comes to about 48 microwave bags. I recently saw the price at Wal-Mart for a box of 8 bags to be $2. I would have to buy 6 of those boxes each month. That’s 12 bucks a month, which is actually a lot lower than I expected it to be, but still higher than I’m paying for real popcorn, cooked in coconut oil, and topped with real butter.
I’m saving $3 per month, eating loads of popcorn, and topping it with all-natural ingredients. If I were using margarine, my cost would be a lot less, but I’m not into hydrogenated soybean oil.
What if I compared my popcorn to potato chips or snack crackers?
September 8th, 2008
Here’s a simple yet scrumptious dip that will be perfect for taking to your New Year’s Eve events…
My son suggested this one after having something similar at CHILI’S. Since I’ve never had it there, I had nothing to go on except that it must have spinach and artichokes.
Our family usually has nothing but munchies on Christmas — purchased appetizers, cheese dip, chips, candy, etc. (This tradition helps me stay available as the designated battery-hunter, instruction-reader, and box-opener.) One of the munchies this Christmas was this Spinach Artichoke Dip, which was served with a variety of chips and crackers.
Party Spinach Artichoke Dip
1 8 oz. package of cream cheese
1/2 c. mayonnaise
1 small jar of marinated artichoke hearts
fresh spinach, about half of a bag
OR frozen spinach, 10 oz.
salt and pepper to taste
There are two possible ways to prepare this — I have a small crock pot for serving dips and cheese sauces. This was perfect for this warm dip.
Cube the cream cheese. If you have a small crock pot, put it in there. If not, let it come to room temperature in a mixing bowl, then cream it with your mixer.
Add the mayonnaise.
Drain MOST of the liquid from the artichoke hearts and place them in a food chopper and give them a few pulses so there are no large chunks. Add this to the cream cheese/mayonnaise combination.
If using fresh spinach, chop and then saute until wilted with just a drip of olive oil. If using frozen spinach, thaw it and squeeze as much liquid out as is humanly possible. Add the spinach to the rest of the ingredients.
Dash your salt and pepper in.
Next, if using the crock-pot method, wait until it warms up and stir occasionally. If using an oven, mix it all up, then place in a small greased casserole dish. Bake at 325 for 20 minutes.
Serve with any of these possibilities: bread sticks, pita chips, bagel chips, crackers, corn chips, fresh bread…
December 28th, 2007
Who loves to experiment in the kitchen? I suppose some people really don’t, but I do! The main thing that holds me back from constantly experimenting is that I hate throwing food away and I’m not crazy about serving nasty experiments-gone-wrong, either.
This is one idea that I had which I thought would take a few tries, but I really wanted to make it, so I dug in a few days before Thanksgiving, hoping I would get it right so we could munch on this on Turkey Day. It’s funny, isn’t it, how you imagine one scenario, but the complete opposite happens? Instead of having to try, try, try again to get the result I wanted, this newly-invented recipe turned out great the first time and was completely gone before Thanksgiving! Everyone in the family who tried it loved it and we ended up sort of fighting over it. (We couldn’t convince the littlest ones in the family to taste it and I have to admit we didn’t try very hard.)
Instead of going out and buying one of those “cheesy” plastic-wrapped and nut-covered cheese balls for the holiday season, try making your own… I bet you could even come up with a new flavor or two to suit your own tastes. I’m thinking of making a few for neighbors and friends.
So, here it is, faithful readers…. The Bacon Jalapeno Cheese Ball:
8 oz. Velveeta
1/3 c. water
1 c. shredded cheddar cheese
2-4 jalapeno peppers
2 cloves garlic
2 t. olive oil, butter, or any kind of oil
1/2 t. red pepper flakes
5 bacon strips
To start, fry up the bacon and let it cool and drain, then crumble it. You can even put it in your food chopper or just have a willing helper cut it up into small pieces with a kitchen shears.
Next, seed the peppers — cut the tops off and remove the inside pith and seeds. Chop them extra-tiny or throw them in the food chopper along with the garlic cloves. These you should saute in the oil in a small skillet. As they cook and soften, add the red pepper flakes.
I did not add any salt or other seasonings to this. Some of you may want to add cumin, chili powder, or other flavors. I decided to keep it simple. I will also mention that I did NOT add SALT, since the Velveeta is already plenty salty and the bacon, too.
So, once the peppers are softened and the bacon is crumbled, you can start on the cheese portion; Place the Velveeta, cut into chunks, and the water in a microwavable, large bowl with high sides (we’re going to be using the mixer in a minute.) Microwave this for a minute at a time, turning and stirring — until the cheese is rather soft. Use an electric mixer to whip this up. It should turn into a smooth, slightly runny cheese sauce, much like nacho cheese. You may have to microwave longer if the chunks won’t smooth out.
Finally, add everything together — dump the jalapenos and the bacon in, mix them in, then add the cheddar cheese. This may seem too soft to make into a cheese ball, that’s OK. Wrap this in some plastic wrap and refrigerate. After a couple hours of chilling, you should be able to mold it into a ball or log for serving.
Serve with your favorite crackers or pita chips. ENJOY!
November 26th, 2007
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