Happy Birthday...POP!

It was Chad's b-day yesterday. He's all the way up to 36 years now. As I was singing and carrying the cake to the table, I was thinking...That's really not very old. But I can remember when that seemed old! Even so, 36 and 5 1/2 kids makes a body feel old...too old, sometimes.

Since the next day was Fast Sunday, we had the cake after lunch. I made German Chocolate. (Chad always makes appreciative sounds when we mention German Chocolate.) I think I was counting on his maturity to excuse me from being very creative with his cake.


But I think he got short-changed anyway. I couldn't even manage to make a "36" on his cake with the candles. There aren't 36 candles, either. I used what I had and was still 13 candles short. Luckily, he's unconcerned with the look of his cake over the TASTE! :)

Maybe it was a good thing we were short 13 candles. He barely got the fire out in one breath as it was.And of course, there was no lack of help to remove the candles. I don't like to keep candles. Maybe when the kids are older, if they stop licking them when they take them out, I'll recycle them. For now, I just buy them at the dollar store.

We ate half the cake then and plan to finish it off this evening. Everyone is waiting in anticipation!

Onto another subject: we got a new popcorn popper recently. Our other popcorn popper is more a lethal weapon than a kitchen appliance. It is one of those vertical air poppers. It shoots the popcorn out at you and pops 1/3 of the kernels you put in. The rest of the kernels are hot torpedoes that must be avoided and then swept up.

Our new popper is a Stir Crazy (West Bend). You put in some oil, then kernels, cover it with a domed lid and plug it in. It stirs the kernels and keeps everything inside until you decide it's done. Then you unplug it and turn it over. The lid serves as a bowl. There is a reservoir on the bottom of the bowl that drips butter onto the corn as it pops, if you so desire. This new popper pops so much more popcorn and no one has to duck!

We had some this afternoon. It's a really big hit with Joseph (and everyone else). It also has some recipes in the manual. We've only made one, but it was very yummy. It kind of tastes like a drier caramel corn...a big plus when it comes to cleaning up the floor and lots of tiny hands.

Here is the recipe for you. You can use any plain popped popcorn.

Sugar ‘N Spice Treat
4 Qts. Plain popcorn
⅓ Cup Butter or margarine
¼ Cup Sugar
1 Tsp Cinnamon
¼ Tsp Salt

.....
1. Prepare 4 quarts of unbuttered popcorn according to instructions. Place in buttered 13x9x2 inch baking pan.
2. In a small saucepan, melt butter over low heat. Stir in sugar, cinnamon and salt. Mix well until sugar dissolves. Pour over popcorn, tossing to coat evenly.
3. Bake in a preheated 300°F oven for 10-minutes. Cool slightly before serving.

And one more scrapped LO for you. Stop here if you're not interested in such things. I know some people don't care. :)