Colder Weather Brings Comfort Foods – Bring on the Fall!

For those of you that live north of Jacksonville, Florida.. or across the globe, we have been sitting in the mid 80’s for the last three weeks! While it may seem like this would be perfect weather, I am from Colorado.  Not saying that I could handle a 30 degree, snow filled day right now if my life depended on it. BUT, what I am saying is that I enjoy seasons. Here in Florida we have two seasons – HOT, and OH MY GOD IT’S HOT! So the minute the weather person tells me to take out my coat, wheh hew I’m on it!

Weather Brings Comfort Foods – Bring on the Fall!

Last night it dipped into the low 40’s and tonight we may see 30’s! As we turn back the clocks tonight, I think of comfort foods that make you want to stay in your home, light the fireplace and be a hermit all day!

I found this insanely great looking popcorn recipe on Design Crush that I wanted to share with you. Kelly, you definitely know how to make my mouth water at a picture and a recipe!

Bacon Cashew Caramel Popcorn – yummy! Make it for your family and chill inside your home today!

Fall Comfort Food – Image: Design Crush

This recipe comes via the wonderful Saveur magazine (who called out my little blog as one of their “Sites We Love,” so I in turn will love them forever), and they got it from someplace in Denver called Colt and Gray. I had never heard of Colt and Gray before this recipe, but based on this popcorn recipe alone, I love them too. It’s part of their bar menu (don’t you just love bar menus???) and I could easily eat it for dinner all by itself.

Here’s the deal. Pop up about 15 cups of popcorn (which is about 1/2 cup of unpopped popcorn kernels, which doesn’t make sense to me but it’s true.)  This will mean your popcorn ends up with just a tiny bit of caramel on each kernel, which was perfect from my point of view, but if you like more caramel on your caramel corn, cut the popped popcorn down to 10 or 12 cups. Cook up some bacon, crumble it up and toss it in with the popcorn. Add in some cashews, some coarse salt and some red pepper.

Now comes the fun part: making the caramel. You bring some cream to a boil with a tea bag, and let it sit for a while. (Tea bag? I don’t know, and I wasn’t going to ask any questions.) Then you boil up some sugar, water and corn syrup in a large saucepan until the sugar melts and turns amber-colored. Now comes the dramatic part: pour in the cream… it will bubble up and then before your eyes you will have a pan full of beautiful molten caramel. Quickly pour it over your popcorn mixture, quickly stir it up to coat everything with just a touch of caramel loveliness. Now turn the whole shebang onto a parchment lined cookie sheet and let it cool until the caramel hardens. Then comes the hardest part of all: trying not to eat it all in one fell swoop. Good luck with that part!

Bacon Cashew Caramel Popcorn

adapted from Saveur

• 1/2 cup popcorn kernels, popped to make 12-15 cups popcorn
• 6 ounces bacon, cooked and chopped
• 1/2 cup cashews
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1/4 cup heavy cream
• 1 tea bag (regular black tea)
• cooking spray
• 1 1/4 cups sugar
• 1/4 cup water
• 2 tablespoons light corn syrup

1. Combine popcorn, bacon and cashews in a large bowl. Sprinkle with salt and cayenne and toss to coat.
2. Bring cream and tea bag just to the boil and remove from heat. Let sit for 15 minutes, press on tea bag and remove.
3. Line baking sheet with foil and coat with nonstick spray. Spray two large spoons with cooking spray as well.
4. Stir sugar, water and corn syrup in large saucepan over medium low heat until sugar dissolves. Increase heat to high and boil without stirring until  syrup turns amber, occasionally swirling pan. This will take about 15 minutes. Remove from heat and immediately add cream – mixture will bubble up – don’t panic!
5. Immediately pour mixture over popcorn, being Very Careful – it’s hot. Toss with the sprayed spoons until well-combined  and transfer to baking sheet. Cool completely and then break up into chunks.

For more food and wine ideas on Stagetecture, click here.