Christmas Eve Party Popcorn

Christmas Eve Edition!

Merry Christmas Eve everyone! I hope everyone’s having some great family time! As for me, we leave for our party at 5pm. So I’ve been making some food, drinking some coffee and thinking about blogging.

First of all, sorry I haven’t blogged in awhile. I got into kind of a funk where I wasn’t working out (for about a week and a half), and I haven’t been cooking as much either. Or at least not cooking anything new and exciting.. nothing worth writing home about, in other words.  Also, my home laptop got corrupted by a big nasty virus, and we’re still trying to fix it. Good thing I have a work laptop! :D

So anyways, after baking endless batches of cookies with my mother-in-law, I asked her if Uncle Bobby liked cookies. He’s kind of the family patriarch, and he’s really sweet to us. But he has everything, so we can never think of what to give him! Well, she told me that he really likes popcorn and likes to munch on it while he watches TV.  Popcorn?! You don’t say! I happen to have an amazing Popcorn Peanut Butter Cluster recipe!

It’s not totally vegan, because it uses honey. There seems to be kind of an internal vegan argument about honey anyways. I don’t eat much honey, so it’s not a big deal. So here it is! (And I promise I’ll go back to the gym after Christmas break!)

Popcorn Peanut Butter Clusters

-1/2 cup unpopped popcorn

-1 and1/2 cup peanuts, cashews, or mixed nuts (I used cashews and almonds)

-1 c sugar

-1/2 c honey

-1/2 c lite karo syrup

-1 c peanut butter

-1 tsp vanilla

Butter a large roasting pan.  I used Earth Balance and a piece of wax paper.

 

Pop the popcorn.  I like to use coconut oil. About 2 Tbsps for 1/2 cup of unpopped popcorn. I feel like it makes the popcorn more crispy than canola oil.

Aw yeah. Stove popped popcorn!

Mix with nuts. Like I said, I used cashews and almonds.

Keep warm in roasting pan in 250 degree oven.  I feel the need to tell you right about now, that this is not going to be a healthy snack. If you want a healthy snack, you probably better just stop right here, with the popcorn and nuts. Because here comes the sugar!

Butter sides of 1and 1/2 quart saucepan.  Combine sugar, honey, and lite (as in color, not diet) corn syrup in pan. 

Bring to a boil, stirring constantly.  Boil hard for 2 minutes. Here's what it will look like. 

Remove from heat.  Stir in peanut butter and vanilla.  Keep stirring until it looks smooth.

Pour over popcorn.

 

Let cool.  I'm letting it cool on a cookie sheet with parchment paper underneath.

Then, I'm going to break it into pieces and put it into a decorative container for Uncle Bobby! 

I actually doubled the recipe here, and tried not to use all of the sugar/peanut butter mix. Just enough to cover and flavor. So hopefully I'm sparing someone a little sugar. But like I said, this is a special holiday treat. So enjoy! :)