Sunday, December 18, 2022

Gingerbread Popcorn

 This is from TheChunkyChef.com.  My daughter had made it one year for Brownies.  It is an odd taste.  It's not one of my favorites but it is a hit with a lot of people.


Ingredients
- 14 cups popped popcorn (try to remove unpopped kernels)
- 1 1/4 cups packed light brown sugar
- 3/4 cup unsalted butter, cubed
- 1/2 cup light corn syrup
- 1/4 cup molasses (we usually use cooking, but have also used fancy)
- 2 tsp ground ginger
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- pinch ground cloves
- 1/2 tsp kosher salt
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 - 1 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions
1. Lightly coat a large mixing bowl with non-stick cooking spray.  Add popped popcorn and set aside.

2. Line two baking pans with parchment paper and lightly spray with non-stick cooking spray.  Set aside.  Preheat oven to 250 degrees F.

3. Add brown sugar, butter, corn syrup, molasses, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and salt to a heavy bottomed saucepan and heat over MED heat, stirring constantly.  Bring to a boil, and then boil without stirring for 4 minutes.

4. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla and baking soda.  The caramel will foam a bit, that's okay.  Working quickly, pour the mixture over the popcorn and mix as well as you can.  If not all the popcorn is covered, that's okay, as it bakes the caramel with thin out and be easier to stir and coat.

5. Transfer the popcorn to the prepared baking pans.  Bake for 1 hour, stirring every 10-15  minutes.  Let cool in the pans, and then break apart any large clumps and store in an airtight container.

Sunday, December 4, 2022

Back in Office

November 22 I went back in to work.  My wife has been going in to the office two days a week for quite some time but, this was the first time back for me since we became isolates.  I was lucky enough to be in a job where I could work from home but they feel that they miss us enough to bring us back.

 

I carried all my equipment back and was able to get everything set up and working at the new desk within an hour.  Someone had moved all of the rest of my stuff that I had left back from the before times to my new desk.  If you know anything about me, you can picture how much stuff that was. 

 

The big difference is that I’m now working on a left hand desk.  I was on a right hand desk for over ten years before we went out and on a straight desk for the last two and a half years.  I’m trying to see if I can get it to work of if it’s going to be too much of a struggle.  The last time I had a left hand desk, I had a bad kink in my shoulder within two days.  I’m working slightly differently now, but we will see how it goes.

 

On the up side, now that I am back in the office, as of Dec 7, I now have my weekends back, as my department only works from Monday through Friday.