caramel popcorn

I was watching an episode of NCIS the other day that involved caramel popcorn, and I found myself craving it. So, I made it. Source recipe is here; this is halved because the original makes way more popcorn than I needed.

Caramel Popcorn
~1/3 cup popcorn kernels
1/2 cup butter
1 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup corn syrup
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 250F. Pop the popcorn.

Melt the butter in a saucepan on medium heat. Add sugar, syrup, and salt. Stir constantly until it boils. Let it boil four minutes without stirring. Remove from heat, stir in soda and vanilla. Pour over your popcorn, mixing said popcorn to coat evenly.

Pro tip #1: Do not, at this stage, sample the caramel. Your teeth thank you.

Put the popcorn in a baking dish. Put in oven. Cook for 1 hour, stirring every 15 minutes.

Pro tip #2: If, at this stage, you decide to leave the burner you used to make the caramel on medium heat because, like me, you are an idiot, do not rest the baking pan on the burner when you are stirring the popcorn, as you will end up with a sticky burned mess stuck to the bottom of your pan, although the popcorn will probably survive if you manage to figure out what's happening within a reasonable period of time.

After the hour, serve. Enjoy.

bella braised chicken

I got to cook with my mother recently, which is a rare experience. I also got to learn a new dish, which is not so rare, but what I like about this one is its variability. I think the origin is a Weight Watchers cookbook, but my mother uses a variety of low-fat recipe sources so don't quote me on that. Besides which, I've filed off the serial numbers. I'm giving you the version I used for my recent dinner party; I'll include some notes afterwards about variation.

Bella Braised Chicken
1 tbsp butter
1 medium onion, diced
~4 stalks celery, diced
~4 carrots, diced
~2 gloves garlic, minced
~5 medium potatoes, sliced very thin
3 tbsp flour
1/4 tsp black pepper
~2 lb chicken
~1 tbsp oil
14 1/2oz (i.e. 1 can) diced tomato
1 cup chicken broth
1/4 cup dry white wine
2 tbsp minced parsley
1 tsp dried thyme

Sauté the vegetables in the butter, then place in a large baking dish. Spread a layer of potato over the top. Combine the flour and the pepper, toss the chicken, then "brown" it in the same pan. Place it over the potato in the baking dish. Sauté the tomato, broth, wine, and spices in the same pan you've been using; scrape up any bits of chicken coating that stuck. Bring to a boil, then pour into baking dish. Cover, bake about 1 hour at 350.

The end result of this is quite tasty, but tends to be a large mass. When I made it with my mother, we user a layer of quartered mushrooms instead of the potatoes; the end result involved copious liquid. The next time I make this I think I'm going to leave out the potato so I get said quantities of sauce, then turn that into something resembling gravy.

We served it over fresh spinach fettuccine the first time, and then I used whole grain linguine the second. In the latter case this just felt really forced, probably because of the potato. I'm at a loss for what (if anything) to serve this version with. That being said, if I do go the gravy route next time I'm going to try it on rice.

Let me know if you try this with some variation I haven't mentioned here.