Christmas Popcorn

 I decided to make a bunch of different treats for my gifts this year.  For the ladies in the office, I made this chocolate drizzle popcorn.

 I bought some super cute sprinkles (Sweet Tooth Fairies) from Michael's.  I also got some red and white melting chocolate and popcorn.  I found a little gingerbread mold and melted my red chocolate in advance.

     I laid the popcorn out, but the white chocolate in a ziplock and heated it in the microwave.  I 'squished it around' every 45 seconds until it's melted. I found that about 1/3 of a bag took 2 45 minute segments and one last 30 second segment (don't overheat it or it crystallizes).
    I snipped a corner of the bag and drizzled it back and forth over popcorn I had laid out on wax paper and tossed on sprinkles before it hardened.  Drizzle more than you think.

I added some cake balls with matching sprinkles and rolled these out.

Ready to Pop Shower

 Working in an elementary school, we host a lot of showers for the staff, but this year is a new record.  We have teachers pregnant, 4 of whom are due within a month or so of each other.  It's also spring, and testing season, which means a lot of after school meetings, as well as a wedding shower to throw, so we combined some of the mom's in a shower for all with a 'pop' theme.  We've done it many different ways (we each bring a dish, go to a restaurant and order appetizers etc), but this time just a few of us purchased the items and we divided it up.

 We have 3 girls and 1 boy represented at this shower, so we just went with a pastel theme and each mom got her own color assigned in a spot in the room.  We ordered cupcakes from Sams and added some blow pops.

 We also picked up some soda pop.

 I made a little tangle of balloons to go behind the food table, and another gal made a banner for the table, and then one for each mom.

 I bought some white buckets at the Dollar Tree, and a have a friend who owns a popcorn shop who delivered the popcorn.  If you life in the Dallas/Collin/Denton/Fort Worth Area it's called Grandpa's Popcorn.  It was delicious and he delivers/will set up.  I don't get anything for saying that, but.....a good company is a good company is a good company and it made life soooooooo much easier.  I ordered Jalapeno Ranch, Zebra, Caramel, Cheddar, and Regular.

 We put some dots on the staff tables, and balloons attached to our hostess gift for each mom.

 My favorite sign in is always a book.  Each mama got a book that the staff all signed to take home to their baby.

 Sometimes we buy a hostess gift, but this time we got baskets and each hostess brought an item for the basket so we didn't have to worry about splitting the cost (bibs, lotions, shoes, toys etc).

It was a really easy way to host a staff by and for a large group of folks.  And.....another one is in the books.

On-A-Stick: (Light) Popcorn Balls On-A-Stick

I decided to try out a Weight Watcher recipe I've been holding in a file for awhile.  I adapted it to the supplies I had on hand, but these gals still turned out to be tasty, and a lot lighter than a traditional popcorn ball. 

To make a light vesion of popcorn balls, take 1 bag of 100 calorie buttered popcorn, cook according to directions.  Remover kernals, and add to a 8x8 baking dish. 

Melt 6 pieces of caramel in the microwave (you can also toss in 1 T of chocolate, I didn't-they used 5 pieces WW candy that is a caramel/chocolate mix, I only had caramel pieces on hand).  Stir and add 1 t. of milk. 

Pour over the popcorn and mix.  It won't mix too well, there will be some chunks, you'll be mixing several more times, so it should be fine. 

Place this mix in a bowl, and toss 5 large marshmallows on top. 

 Bake at 350 for 5 minutes.  Pull out.  Let cool for one minute, and then mix it all together, and form 4 balls (about 1 c. each), the original recipe recommended spraying your hands down with cooking spray, it did get pretty sticky, but still doable.  Place these back in the dish, and bake another 5 minutes.  Pull out, insert stick, and cool.  These held together really well, and taste great.  These would be really cute at a circus party, or fall holidays....I have another date with this idea in the fall.