Lately my husband and I have had a craving for caramel corn. I decided it was time to make a batch so we could just get that craving over with. I whipped out the old air popper from the back of the cupboard, hauled out the bowls and paper bags and got out the recipe.
Later as we sat eating our bowlful of caramel corn we started to reflect on the expectations I used to have when I made popcorn when our boys were small.
I always had the vision of three boys, freshly bathed, sitting in their jammies eating popcorn. In my vision these boys (Thinking back I am not sure whose boys I was seeing in my dreams) were quietly holding their colorful Tupperware bowls full of white buttery popcorn. They were eating their treat slowly, kernel by kernel and avidly watching the family friendly movie I had checked out from the local library.
Also in this vision my living room was dusted, vacuumed, and had everything in it’s place. The vision resembled a Norman Rockwell painting.
For some reason the reality of popcorn/movie night with our family never ended up looking quite like that Rockwell painting. It started out with great expectations…..three boys were freshly bathed, had colorful Tupperware bowls with popcorn and a movie was playing.
After that it went downhill. Three boys were soon scrambling around on the floor, arguing about who was sitting in who’s space or who had taken someone’s bowl. With all the scrambling around going on the popcorn did not stay in those wonderful bowls and ended up under the couch, behind the end tables and everywhere but in the bowls.
By the time the movie had ended and they had been put to bed our living room looked like there had been an explosion in a popcorn factory. I was crabby and my husband would gently (and sometimes with a smirk) remind me that we had “real” little boys and this is how they acted……he would know as he had three brothers and a sister.
Our popcorn/movie nights are much quieter now with just the two of us. No scrambling children and no popcorn flying to land behind the furniture. Those previous nights now are just memories that bring a smile to our faces…..it is always easier to smile when popcorn explosions are memories!
If you are the parents of small children and want to give the popcorn Rockwell vision a try or you just have a craving for something sweet, here is a great recipe for caramel corn.
Microwave Caramel Corn
8 quarts popped popcorn
2 sticks butter
2 1/4 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup white corn syrup
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
Divide the popcorn into two large bowls.
Boil butter, brown sugar, syrup, and salt in heavy saucepan for 5 minutes, stirring constantly.
Add: vanilla and stir in.
Remove from heat and stir in soda
Divide and pour over popped popcorn.
Stir and pour each bowl of popcorn into a large brown paper grocery bag.
Microwave each bag for 1 1/2 minutes, remove and shake,
microwave 1 1/2 minutes more, shake and pour into bowl.
Can also be baked in oven on flat pans at 250º for 1 hour – stirring every 10 minutes.
NOTE: I use real butter as I think is does not get as greasy.
I also like to use an air popper for the popcorn.
My family is my strength and my weakness.
Aishwarya Rai Bachchan
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/aishwaryar180644.html?src=t_family
Ooo saving this recipe to make later this month!!!
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Doing it in the microwave works great! And is fast :). Let me know if your family night resembles the Norman Rockwell painting or one of those run amuk LOL.
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Was it just me who found the disparity between your vision and real life so hilarious?! Bless your heart Grandma!
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I know!!! And I tried the same thing over and over…..maybe I am a really slow learner LOL. Or I am an optimist! I am going to choose optimist :).
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Haha! I also choose optimist! 🙂
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LOL!!! What a perfectly wonderful, funny and charming story!! I laughed right out loud when the scramble started! I love that your room was also vacuumed and dusted…of course it was! Seriously, this is a lovely memory that I’m sure everyone with boys will relate too…thanks for sharing in such an honest and hilarious way! 🙂
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It has become a saying at our house when I have expectations that my husband feels might be too high….he will look at me and say, “Is this kind of like a popcorn night?”
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Lol! That’s funny…
Of course your expectations are never too high, right? 😉
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I am the eternal optimist :).
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That’s a good thing!! 😉
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Sounds like popcorn nights were a lot of fun. My husband and I use to make popcorn balls all the time. Memories are more easy to smile about, than cleaning up messes. Ha I had 2 brothers and a sister and decades ago when we were kids, we made some big messes. I have only a daughter, was not able to have more children, but her and her cousins and friends made some nice messes.
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Popcorn nights were fun. And they are still fun to remember. I think kids and messes kind of go together :).
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Lovely recipe!
Yes I had five girls and they weren’t much better haha..,in fact rhey still squabble even though one is a mum herself and the youngest is 15 lol. Still, together they are stronger than the fiercest wind.
Memories, hey? 🙂
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Your girls sound like my boys……only they could fight with each other. If anyone else challenged one of them they all stood together.
Memories are good!
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Love this vision. I expect you looked like a contemporary Doris Day too, right? Or Elizabeth Perkins in Miracle on 34th Street maybe? How about you revive the tradition, but visit your kids instead and you and your husband can throw the popcorn, and maybe a tantrum or two?
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LOL I wonder what we would like scrambling around on the floor? And yep I am pretty sure I did look a lot like Doris Day or June Cleaver from the “Leave it to Beaver” show…..complete with heels and pearls.
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Of course! Never doubted it!
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Yes sounds like one of our movie nights years ago. Now I have grandchildren that come and want a movie and POPCORN. The evening still ends up the way it did back then!! Those are memories to cherish.
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Isn’t it fun when you get to redo life with grandkids!!
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I will definitely try the caramel corn! I was and still am the “accidental” messy one. I usually opened the door for the kids to make a mess. My popcorn would always spill (it still does but now Dog takes care of the mess). Thankfully my kids learned how to laugh at my misfortune and shared their popcorn with me!
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It seems like even without kids we always have popcorn that ends up on the floor. I probably should have a dog.
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My Sal is very valuable in the mess area! She does a great job of cleaning up after me!
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Well I’m jealous. I LOVE the taste of popcorn but I can’t eat it. Those little husk bits will catch in my throat and they make me icky. Such a sadness to me because the whole of my fabulous family have no problems with it and eat it like its going out of fashion.
Yours looks so wonderful that I want to stick my face into the bowl and chomp. LOL. ~ Cobs.x
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That is so sad that you cannot eat popcorn! Do they have the puffed corn in the stores by you? That does not have any husks. I end up with the husks stuck in my teeth, then I need to floss……which probably make the dentist extremely happy.
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So funny! I’ve been laughing out loud and my husband keeps asking what I am reading! Our entire Thanksgiving week at the farm is one long “Popcorn Night”! Thank you for giving me a name for the chaos! Every room becomes a disaster with my great nieces and nephews. Plus their parents and plus our close friends and their children and grandchildren on Thanksgiving Day! I am going to make the caramel corn! I love it, but have never made it! I will practice at home first!
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I always had such great expectations for those nights…..I finally realized that the reality of those nights was a way better memory than the Rockwell version ever would have been.
Don’t you just love family gatherings that hover on the edge of mayhem and chaos? It makes me smile just thinking of it.
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