Last Minute Olive Oil Kettle Corn

Last Minute Olive Oil Kettle Corn

“Hey mom, can you make a treat for me to take to my Young Women’s group tonight”, “ Sure honey, what time do you need to be there?” , “In 15 minutes!”. Okay, can’t bake, don’t have any pre-packaged anything in my house, fruit? Not unless I want to make my daughter look bad. So…. Hmmm… what can I pull off in ten minutes? “ Can you make some popcorn ?”. "I can do better than that sweetie pie, much better".

And so it was… A delicious kettle corn whipped up at the last minute and I have to say…”salty, sweet, loving heavenly crunch". What a yummy treat! You really gotta try this one for a last minute, gotta have a treat.

Hey, it worked for me :)

Last Minute Olive Oil Kettle Corn

Ingredients:

1/3 cup white popcorn kernels

3 Tablespoons EVOO

2 Tablespoons Butter (optional)

½ cup cane sugar

Sea salt to sprinkle

Preparation:

1. Toss the EVOO in a large pot (you must have a fitting lid made of glass), and toss the popcorn in.

2. Heat over a medium/high flame until the popcorn starts popping. When the bottom of the pot is covered with popped kernels, very carefully open the pot and pour in sugar (Warning: this is scary, because some of the popping corn will escape.

3. The popping will start to slow a bit and that’s normal. When popping picks up, drop the flame to medium/low. With the cover still on, move the pot over the flame with a back and forth motion.

4. Continue moving pot until popping slows down. Quickly remove from heat as the sugar continues cooking and will easily burn.

5. Stir in melted butter and sprinkle with salt.

Extreme Lemon Sugar Cookie

Extreme Lemon Sugar Cookie

When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade right?

Not so fast missy!

Although I love a nice tall glass of lemonade as much the next guy, there is so much more to lemons (and life) than just plain old lemonade. For example…

Did you also know that lemons:

Are the top source of citric acid

Packed with vitamin C

Act as a natural laxative (the juice of one lemon blended with one egg yolk)

Fresh lemon juice has only 4 calories

Are a natural therapy for treating fever?

When heated, creates salicylic acid, which is a natural pain reliever.

Are excellent thirst quencher

A natural insect repellent

Lighten hair color in the sun

Are an natural body detoxifier

Fruits like apples and pears from going brown

Have a delicious and soothing aroma

Add incredible flavor to baked goods

Lemon tips

When needing only a few drops of lemon juice, prick one end with a fork and squeeze the desired amount.

Lemon juice can be frozen for up to 6 month and still taste fresh. To freeze, place juice in ice cube trays.

When a recipe calls for fresh squeezed lemons, squeeze upside down to avoid seeds from dropping into your recipe.

To extend the shelf life of a lemon, keep them in your refrigerator in a clean jar, cover them with cold water and seal the jar well.

And …

A couple of useless facts about lemons:

There are 18 varieties of lemons worldwide

On his second voyage, Christopher Columbus brought the first lemons (and lemon trees) to America.

So, when life gives you lemons go ahead and make lemonade…….

You might also want to make my amazing lemon sugar cookies

Extreme Lemon Sugar Cookies

Ingredients:

⅔ cup pure olive oil

1 cup granulated sugar

1 large egg

2½ teaspoons pure vanilla extract

2 tablespoons lemon zest (one large lemon)

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

2¼ cups flour (whole wheat pastry flour works well)

1 teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

½ cup additional sugar for rolling

Preparation:

1. Preheat oven to 375°F. Coat cookie sheets

with olive oil cooking spray.

2. In mixer bowl add olive oil, sugar, egg,

vanilla, lemon zest, and lemon juice. Blend

until smooth.

3. Add flour, baking powder, baking soda, and

salt. Mix until well blended.

4. Drop by teaspoonfuls or by small size cookie

scoop into sugar and roll until well coated.

Place on prepared cookie sheets.

5. Bake 8 minutes, cool on wire racks, pucker up, and enjoy!!!

If you want to get really spunky...Why not dust them with powdered sugar?

© Micki's Kitchen- Micki Sannar 2011

Micki Sannar grants permission for her amazing recipes to be passed from friend to friend in print or on the web. While these recipes may be shared without prior approval, Micki requests that an e-mail notification that includes the URL or print page where the excerpt is being used be sent to Micki@oliveoildesserts.com . Use of Micki’s recipes, quotes, images, or any other written text, may be distributed through publication only for purposes of promoting Micki’s books and blog style recipe groups, and with no changes, editing, or additions whatsoever. The following statement must be included at the end of the selected recipe taken from Micki’s Web site, Facebook page, Twitter account, and so forth: Copyright © year of publication by Micki Sannar. All rights reserved.

Sweet Olive Oil Pumpkin Bread

Sweet Olive Oil Pumpkin Bread (V)*

In the mid 1800s, nearly a quarter of a million immigrants from Ireland came to America to escape the Irish Potato Famine. As luck would have it, they also brought what later became one of most honored traditions in America.

Jack-O-Lanterns originally were carved from a turnip, gourd, potato or beet. They were then lit with a candle or a burning lump of coal. These lanterns represented the souls of those who had gone before. The Irish believed that the lanterns protected them from any evil spirits that may have been hanging out and about. Here in America Turnips or gourds were not such a hot commodity, but pumpkins were. So the Pumpkin became the de facto Jack O Lantern as well as famous around the world as the symbol of Halloween.

Who doesn’t love Halloween? All those cute kids, creative costumes, candy, and spook alleys. And… the pumpkins, oh… those adorable pumpkins. They seem to be everywhere! There seems to be gazillion things to with a pumpkin. There is even a rock band named The Smashing Pumpkins. However, my favorite use for a pumpkin is to bake a delicious loaf of soft and savory pumpkin bread.

Try my delicious pumpkin bread made with heart healthy olive oil and you are sure to enjoy a delicious Halloween. Not to mention …., there will be no evil spirits in your kitchen!!!

Sweet Olive Oil Pumpkin Bread

Ingredients:

1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin puree

4 eggs

1 cup pure olive oil

1 Tablespoon molasses

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

2/3 cup water

2 cups white sugar

1 cup brown sugar

3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

Preparation:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Spray three 7×3 inch loaf pans bread pans with olive oil cooking spray.

2. In a large bowl, mix together pumpkin puree; eggs, olive oil, molasses, vanilla water and sugar and brown sugar. Until well blended. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and ginger. Stir the dry ingredients into the pumpkin mixture until just blended. Pour into the prepared pans.

3. Bake for about 50 minutes in the preheated oven. Loaves are done when toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

* Vegan

© Micki's Kitchen- Micki Sannar 2011

Micki Sannar grants permission for her amazing recipes to be passed from friend to friend in print or on the web. While these recipes may be shared without prior approval, Micki requests that an e-mail notification that includes the URL or print page where the excerpt is being used be sent to Micki@oliveoildesserts.com . Use of Micki’s recipes, quotes, images, or any other written text, may be distributed through publication only for purposes of promoting Micki’s books and blog style recipe groups, and with no changes, editing, or additions whatsoever. The following statement must be included at the end of the selected recipe taken from Micki’s Web site, Facebook page, Twitter account, and so forth: Copyright © year of publication by Micki Sannar. All rights reserved.