The Taste & Smell of Christmas
Allison and I have been busy little elves the last couple of weeks with our painting parties. We want to thank you all who have participated. We’ve had over 100 people painting their burlap stockings or trees and a wonderful job you have all done. We have one last class on Monday evening, and then we’re packing up the burlap for a while!
This weekend, I took a little break from that project and dove into a few others. As a dear friend of mine defined it, “it’s therapy” (and much cheaper than the more formal kind of therapy). You know, crafting this, baking that, decorating here, pinteresting there. It’s amazing what playing around the house can do for my mind. Anybody else out there like that?
As promised, umm, two weeks ago, I finally made Christmas Crunch. Allison introduced me to it when I was at her house a while back and she said “take some home to the kids”. She made sure to clarify that it had NO peanuts, since both my little ones are allergic to peanuts, and I recently discovered I am too. (ugh, another story for another day). So I thought “great! I’ll snag a couple of bites and then they can have some when I get home.” Did you know the drive from Lake View Shores to Cimarron Drive is a reeeeaaaaallly long one? So long, that oops, I ate the whole bag of this delightful delish treat before I even got to my neighborhood. Good stuff!! So, here’s my 4th day of December present to you….
Christmas Crunch
Christmas Crunch
1 cup mini marshmallows
2-3 cups crushed pretzels
4 cups white chocolate
Cinnamon Sugar & Melted Semi-Sweet Chocolate for drizzling
1 batch Caramel Corn (recipe below)
1/8 tsp. kosher salt (optional)
Mix Marshmallows and pretzels with cooled caramel corn. Melt white chocolate. Pour over mixture mixing until completely coated. Spread on parchment covered cookie sheets. Lightly sprinkle with cinnamon sugar. Cool & drizzle with semi-sweet chocolate.
Caramel Popcorn
15 cups popped popcorn
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup butter
¼ cup corn syrup
½ tsp salt
½ tsp baking soda
Preheat oven to 200 degrees. In medium saucepan combine butter, sugar, corn syrup & salt. Heat on medium, stirring occasionally. When bubbles appear, cook for 5 more minutes without stirring. Remove from heat & stir in baking soda. Mix with popcorn until coated. Place on 2 greased cookie sheets. Cook for 1 hour turning every 15 minutes.
This really was easy peasy. I started off by popping by popcorn kernals in the microwave. I recently started popping my own kernals in a brown paper bag. uh-huh, that’s right. I scooped one cup of kernals into a large brown lunch bag, folded the top down twice and popped it in the microwave for 3 minutes and voila-it yielded 15 cups of popped popcorn. who knew? now you do!
Next, I mixed my caramel on the stove top based on the recipe given, then mixed it with the popcorn and into the oven it went and followed the directions until it was out an hour later. If you are just a caramel popcorn fanatic, then you’re done!
But if you want a super duper sweet treat, then continue on!
Just mix in the pretzels, marshmallows and white chocolate, stir and then spread out on a couple of pans lined with parchment paper. Sprinkle on cinnamon sugar and drizzle on your melted semi sweet chocolate and voila! Good luck keeping big and little kids from eating it before the chocolate hardens! If you have some left, wrap it up in a clear cellophane bag and it will make a delicious and beautiful gift.
This is a great recipe to let the kids help with. Breaking pretzals and tossing mini marshmallows into the bowl are kid friendly parts of the recipe. Then, of course licking the bowl is a must!
Now on to the SMELL of Christmas. This was sooo easy and it smells amazing. Take an orange peel. In my case a clementine peel after I ate it. Throw it in a small saucepan, add 1 Tbsp of whole cloves and a few cinnamon sticks and enough water to cover it all. Turn the eye on medium to low and it
just a few minutes you will have a warm and comforting aroma wafting through your kitchen and your whole house. Keep the eye on low to just keep it going and be sure to add water to the pot to keep it going. Turn it off after a while and the smell will continue on for hours. This batch can remain on your stovetop to use over and over for several weeks. Of course, the color is going to turn brown, but who cares when it smells this good!
Now one more cute little thing to wrap up the night. If you have a cricut or silhouette, this is a cute thing to bring a little humor into your house. AND if you have an elf, this would be a great little trick to put your mischievous elf in charge of. Although my youngest has seen the mustaches around the house today, I’m thinking “Cold”, his elf is going to get a little facial hair tonight.
Ahh, what a day is has been. This chicka is ready for nighty-nite!
~Brenda