Homemade Moose Munch Popcorn

Moose Munch popcorn is a Harry & David trademark. Their signature popcorn is one of their most popular treats for Christmas. They call it "premium popcorn," and it definitely has a "premium" price tag. So when I saw a recipe for a homemade version, I decided to try it. 

As a teenager, I loved to make caramel popcorn. The caramel base for this recipe is similar to the caramel corn recipe I've used for years. This version has nuts and some chocolate drizzled over the completed snack. Chocolate is sure to make anything premium, right? 

I first tried it for our Super Bowl watch party. But it would be a great snack as year-end basketball tournaments begin. Our K-State men's team didn't make the Big Dance, but they play tonight in the NIT vs. Iowa. And the play-in games for the NCAA tournament start tonight, too. Our K-State women's team will take to the Octagon of Doom court on Friday afternoon vs. the Portland Pilots. So there are plenty of snacking opportunities ahead this week. 

Or, dress it up with some Easter M&Ms for your Easter guests and they'll think you spent the big bucks on the Harry & David trademark!

Enjoy! And Go 'Cats!

 

 Moose Munch Popcorn

From Favorite Family Recipes 

20 cups popped popcorn with kernels removed

1/2 cup whole cashews, lightly salted

1/2 cup whole almonds, lightly salted

1/2 cup salted peanuts

3/4 cup butter

1 1/2 cups light brown sugar

1/2 cup light corn syrup

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

1 cup milk chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 250 degrees. Cover two large cookie sheets with parchment paper. Place popped popcorn and nuts in a large bowl.

In a medium saucepan, combine butter, brown sugar and corn syrup. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly 2 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in baking soda and salt. It will foam up. 

Pour caramel mixture over popcorn and fold until well coated. Pour equal amounts on prepared cookie sheets. Spread the popcorn to a single layer. Bake 15 minutes, stir, then bake another 10 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool.

Melt chocolate in microwave-safe bowl, stirring every 30 seconds until smooth. Use a spoon or folk to drizzle melted chocolate over popcorn. Let is sit until chocolate hardens. Break into bite-sized pieces. Stores in airtight container or plastic bag. It will stay fresh for about 2 weeks. 

 

Notes:

• I had cocoa-covered whole almonds leftover from Christmas baking, so I used those in place of the salted almonds. You can use any combination of nuts totaling 1 1/2 cups. 
• I also used semi-sweet chocolate rather than milk chocolate because I prefer the slightly more bitter version. 

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Southwest Ranch Dip

Looking for other snack ideas? I included a round-up of sandwiches, meatball, dips and other snacks in a Super Bowl post. Click HERE for all those recipes, just a couple of which are pictured. 

Turkey Club Pinwheels

Cheese Popcorn: A New Year's Eve Snack

WARNING: Neon yellow fingers are a side effect of this snack.

But it's worth it. And it will make your New Year's Eve celebration merrier ... and tastier!

I've always loved cheddar popcorn. Well, let me qualify that. I've always loved the taste of the high-dollar cheddar popcorn at specialty stores. However, the inexpensive metal tins with three different popcorns just didn't satisfy. And my efforts to make a copycat version of the gourmet variety had always fallen short ... until this year.

My friend, Kim Baldwin, who raises Papa Baldy's popcorn with her in-laws, Dwight and Cindy Baldwin in McPherson County, posted a photo showing cheddar popcorn on their Facebook page before Christmas. So I asked her to share their recipe.

 

First of all, I highly recommend Papa Baldy's. (This is an unsolicited endorsement.) They just harvested their second crop of jumbo mushroom popcorn this past September. I've traded in my microwave popcorn for popping this Kansas-grown product on top of the stove.

But, back to the cheddar popcorn.

You need to find cheddar cheese powder. If all else fails, you can open boxes of macaroni and cheese with the cheese packets and collect enough there. However, if you have a place where you can buy cheddar cheese powder in bulk, that's what I would recommend. I got my cheddar cheese powder at Glenn's Bulk Food. I also found white cheddar powder there. But I didn't think it tasted as "cheesy" as the neon yellow variety, so I went with the "real" deal. Thus, the yellow fingers!

You can also order cheddar cheese powder online. And, I think it would also work to use those smaller containers of cheese flavorings you find near popcorn in the grocery store.

This recipe uses ground mustard. I admit: I was dubious. But maybe that's what was missing in earlier versions I'd tried. 

To put the recipe together, I used my circa 1980s green Tupperware bowl. (They call it a "fix and mix" bowl now.) But, if you don't have that, you can use a large, clean brown paper bag. The sealable bowl is less messy, but do what you have to do to get this done. It's worth it.

Papa Baldy's recipe is similar to one I found that was a copycat of Garrett's Popcorn, which is a Chicago staple.

Garrett's is also famous for combining their cheddar and caramel corns in what they call a "Chicago mix."

For that, I used the caramel corn recipe I've used since high school. (Click here for the recipe and ignore the cheese popcorn one I posted then. This version is much better.)

Cheddar Cheese Popcorn

from Papa Baldy's

3 quarts popped popcorn (from about 1/2 cup kernels)**
4 tbsp. melted butter
3/4 cup cheddar cheese powder
2 tsp. ground mustard powder
Salt to taste (I found I didn't need additional salt)

Pop the popcorn and transfer into a BIG Tupperware-like bowl with a lid or a clean brown bag.

Melt the butter and pour over popcorn. Shake to get all popcorn covered.
 
Combine dry cheese and ground mustard. Add to buttered popcorn. Shake again.

Salt to taste. I found it didn't need extra salt with the powder I used.

** Kim says that if it's too "wet," you can microwave the popcorn for about 30 seconds. I never found I needed to do that. However, I used 1/4 cup butter-flavored popcorn oil and 2/3 cup popcorn kernels for the butter and the cheddar cheese mix called for, so I probably had more than 3 quarts popcorn. (I didn't measure.)  I thought it made it plenty cheesy.

Super Bowl Snack Mix

Do you have a game plan for your Super Bowl viewing? Just like coaches refer to their playbooks, I like having some tried-and-true, go-to options for snacking. Snack mixes "score" because they require minimal effort and maximum taste.

I won't be flying high on game day since I'm no Seahawk, perched here on the plains of Kansas. I don't even have a "horse" in the race, unlike some of my Denver Bronco-loving friends. But we'll still be watching and munching this Sunday. (Unless it gets postponed to Monday because of weather. I heard that on some television newscast, but I can't imagine that happening. We shall see, I guess.)

On Sunday Bowl Sunday, some 8 million pounds of guacamole will be consumed. Football (and commercial) fans will tear through 28 million pounds of chips. My little contribution to making a dent in that mountain of chips purchased from the snack aisle? This snack mix that  I've been making for so long that I no longer know where I got the recipe. I've used it for VBS snacks, and it's always the savory snack mix option in a sea of sweet during the Christmas snacking season.

The combo of popcorn, pretzels and cheese curls gets even better with buttery seasonings. (It even has a bit of orange for you Bronco fans.)

Super Snack Mix-Up

1/3 cup butter
2 qts. popped popcorn
5 to 6 cups pretzels
3 to 4 cups cheese curls
2/3 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
2/3 tsp. garlic salt
2/3 tsp. seasoned salt

Preheat oven to 250 degrees. Combine popcorn, pretzels and cheese curls in large roaster pan. Melt butter in microwave. Add Worcestershire sauce, garlic salt and seasoned salt, stirring well to combine. Drizzle the butter mixture over the popcorn mixture and toss lightly to coat. Bake for 20 minutes total, stirring halfway through cooking time. Makes about 3 quarts. I always at least double this recipe. Store in an airtight container.

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Need some other snack mix ideas before this weekend's big game? Here are a few other favorites:

Monster Cookie Dough Popcorn Munch

AND, Good as Gold Snack Mix. (Hey, with a name like that, maybe this is the one for Olympics viewing!)

Good As Gold Snack Mix

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Even though it's Thursday, I'm linked today to Wake Up Wednesdays on Ashley's Kitchen Meets Girl. (Kansas Day preempted posting about food yesterday.) Click on the link for lots more recipes.

Ahoy, Matey! It's a Party

I'm hoping the nutrition police won't make me walk the plank for serving sweet popcorn mix and sheet cakes at 9 o'clock in the morning.  (Yes, that's a mixed metaphor if you've ever read one. But stick with me.)

Maybe I'll be forgiven since the sweet treats were for a surprise birthday party for our minister. We're still in the getting-to-know-you stage with Pastor Ben, who began serving the Stafford United Methodist Church this month. We know he wears high-top sneakers to match the color of the current liturgical season. Right now, that means his pastoral robes are jazzed up with bright green Converses. We also know that he has an affinity for pirates. Who would have thought that I'd type "Talk Like A Pirate Day: September 22" on the agenda for the upcoming worship team meeting? Not me.

His birthday actually fell on his second Sunday with us. Lucky him, right? (I'm not sure he'd agree.) Anyway, when I saw a pirate pinata on a sale table, I thought it was the perfect centerpiece for a surprise birthday party.

When I saw the same popcorn snack mix featured in two of my bookmarked foods blogs, it was like Blackbeard himself was giving me party-planning tips 'cause this popcorn mix is like a sweet treasure with its mix of M&Ms, miniature marshmallows, mini chocolate chips and oatmeal. Oatmeal? Yep, oatmeal! Does oatmeal give it any redeeming nutritional value at all? Probably not, but it does help give it a monster cookie-esque taste.

It also has chocolate chip cookie dough candy bites. Since I had to go to Hutchinson for a personal dental emergency, it allowed me to pick up this ingredient that I can't find at my local stores. (No, the irony of shopping for candy after having to visit the dentist for a bad toothache is not lost on me.)

Whether you're looking for a way to celebrate a birthday or just want an easy movie night snack mix, you'll want to add this Monster Cookie Dough Popcorn Munch to your treasure chest, errrrrrr, recipe box. It would also be delicious for tailgating (though you may need to wait until it's cooler so the chocolate bits don't melt). You could even dress it up for the occasion by using M&Ms in your favorite team's colors.

Monster Cookie Dough Popcorn Munch

Adapted from Inside Bru Crew Life blog

7 cups popped popcorn
1 cup M & Ms
1 cup cookie dough bites candy
1 cup miniature marshmallows
1/2 cup miniature chocolate chips
10 oz. almond bark
1/3 cup biscoff cookie spread
1/2 cup quick oats

In a microwave-safe bowl, melt the almond bark, heating for 1 minute at a time at 70 percent power, then stirring. Continue until the almond bark is melted, making sure it doesn't burn. Add the biscoff spread and stir until melted and creamy. Stir in the oats. Let cool for 3 to 4 minutes.

In a large bowl, combine the popcorn and marshmallows. Pour the melted almond bark mixture on top and toss lightly until everything is coated. Add the cookie dough bites, M&Ms and mini chocolate chips and toss lightly again. Pour the popcorn out on a large, waxed-paper-lined cookie sheet. Place in the refrigerator about 5 minutes to set up. Take out and break into chunks. Store in a tightly sealed bag or container.

Notes:

•  If you want a little more salty element, add a cup or so of deluxe mixed nuts. 
• The original recipe called for 1 1/4 cups white chocolate chips and 1 teaspoon of shortening, melted together. I used the almond bark instead.  
• If you don't want to measure, 7 cups of popped popcorn is roughly 1 regular bag of microwave popcorn. (There's probably a little more than that, but it works.) Be sure to discard any "old maids" before mixing up the snack mix. You don't want an unexpected trip to the dentist either. (FYI: That wasn't my problem.)
• You can find biscoff cookie spread by the peanut butter at some food stores.
• I found the cookie dough bites candy in the candy aisle of a discount store. The box looks like you'd get at the snack counter at the movie theater. 

See that Strawberry Sheet Cake in the corner of the pirate pinata photo? It's a favorite cake at Stafford United Methodist Church and is as easy as it is tasty. Click here for the recipe, which begins with a white cake mix. I also made a chocolate sheet cake and a Texas white sheet cake from scratch. They are all church approved.

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I'm linked today to Ashley's What's In Your Kitchen Wednesday. Click on the link for more tried-and-true recipes from food bloggers.