It all started when my boss brought a popcorn maker into the office while we had extra temporary staff working. We were going through quite a bit because we made at least one batch each day, so my boss asked me to grab popcorn kernels along with other snacks when I went to Sam's Club for office supplies. I searched and searched, but I only found one option...a 50 pound bag. The price was $32 which was pretty good considering less than 2 pounds can go for more than $5. But 50 pounds?
I teased my boss that I was going to buy it, but I didn't. When we were done with our research project, we realized we had actually gone through close to 50 pounds over the course of a few months, and we should have bought it. Our temporary workers were done at that point, so my newfound popcorn habit quickly ended. (Note: towards the end we were rotating the dates we made popcorn because we feared we would develop corn allergies due to the amount and frequency with which we were eating it.)
Over the holidays, I was shopping at Target and came across Angie's Kettle Corn. The flavor was Sweet & Salty which sounded amazing. It was Certified Gluten-Free through GFCO, and it was dairy, soy, and nut free. I had to buy it and try it's deliciousness.
I was right. It was amazing. I quickly realized it would get expensive to eat this constantly, so I was going to try to make it myself. I did a few quick searches and settled on a recipe from allrecipes.com. (Click here if you'd like to check it out.) I swapped out the vegetable oil for olive oil, and I added an unknown amount of salt because I wanted it to be similar to the Sweet & Salty variety.
The first batch came out good, but it was way too salty, the sugar could have been better distributed, and a small amount of it was slightly burnt. The picture makes it look pretty good though:
We gave it another shot the next night, but we measured out one tablespoon of salt rather than simply dumping the salt. It was still a bit too salty, so I think we are going to skip the salt altogether the next time we make it which should turn out more like this other flavor I found at another grocery store:
Yes, I'm so hooked, I had to buy more.
So that's my popcorn story. It's hard to believe I didn't eat popcorn for over 3 years because I broke a tooth on popcorn which caused a root canal and a crown. I guess I'm making up for lost time.
I'm also trying to decide if it's worth it to keep buying this popcorn. I haven't figured out the cost per serving, but it's kind of a pain in the butt to make kettle corn, so laziness might win over frugalness this time. The packaged kind is far better than what I've managed to make at this point too.
Do you ever get on a food kick? Do you love popcorn as much as I do now? Tell me about it!
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