Savory Popcorn for Mom

Mother’s Day is just days away and if you’re thinking about making her a treat, why not try something a little different like some savoury popcorn.

We’ve come up with a list of some recipes that can spice up the typical popcorn snack. You can make it for your mom as an appetizer snack, package some up as a gift, or serve it with an after dinner movie or some relaxing time with your mom.

I’m usually a plain butter and salt popcorn gal. Every so often I’ll make a batch of caramel popcorn (we blogged the recipe here a few years ago) as a treat. Today though we are focusing on the savoury type of popcorn with lots of flavour! Take a look at some of the recipes below and see if anything stands out and give it a go for your mom or just for fun.

All of these recipes are best on some freshly popped popcorn. The recipes will nicely coat about 12-16 cups of popped popcorn but you can cut down the recipes to however much you’d like to make.

Brown Butter Lemon – Cook 6 Tbsp. of butter in a pan until browned and then take the pan off the heat and add 1 ½ tsp. of lemon zest. Stir and pour over the popcorn. Toss with salt.

Garlic and Herb – Melt 4 Tbsp. of butter in a pan and add 4 cloves of grated garlic and a tsp. each of fresh finely cut rosemary, sage, thyme and Drizzle over the popcorn and toss with some salt and

cook for a minute.

Parmesan and Rosemary – Add ½ cup of grated Parmesan along with 3 Tbsp. of olive oil, 1 Tbsp. of fresh finely cut rosemary, and toss with salt.

Three Cheese – For this one you’re gonna want to make sure your popcorn is warm. Then toss in 2 cups of shredded cheddar, 1 cup of grated Parmesan, and a ½ cup of Pecorino. Spread it all on a baking sheet (lined is probably best) and bake it at 350 degrees until the cheddar melts. About 3 minutes. Keep an eye on it though!

Italian Cheese – Mix 6 Tbsp. grated Romano cheese, 2 ¼ tsp. of Italian seasoning, and ¾ tsp. of garlic salt.  

Sesame – Heat 6 Tbsp. of butter with 2/3 cup of sesame seeds and cook until the seeds are toasted (5 or so minutes). Stir in 1 Tbsp. of sugar and toss with some salt.

Sesame Ginger – Melt ¼ cup of butter and stir in ½ tsp. of sesame oil, a drip or two of soy sauce, and a pinch of ginger powder. Pour over the popcorn and toss well.

Bacon Chive – Cook up some chopped bacon bits (6 slices is fine but you can some extra because the more bacon the better!). Keep the drippings and drizzle 2 Tbsp. of that with the same amount of butter over the popcorn and then toss with the bacon, ½ cup chopped chives, and ½ tsp. of cayenne. Season with some salt but it might be salty enough with the bacon and drippings.

Sriracha Lime – Whisk 5 Tbsp. of melted butter with ¼ cup of  Sriracha , 1 ½ tsp. of lime zest, , and 1 Tbsp. of lime juice and drizzle over the popcorn. Toss with salt.  

Chipotle – Melt 4 Tbsp. of butter with 2 Tbsp. of Chipotle hot sauce, and 1 tbsp. of Chipotle chile powder. Drizzle over the popcorn and toss with salt and corn nuts.

Cajun – Melt 4 Tbsp. of butter with 1 Tbsp. of Cajun seasoning , 1 tsp. of lemon zest, ¼ tsp. of cayenne, and 2 chopped scallions. Drizzle over the popcorn and toss with salt.

Curry- Melt ¼ cup of butter add in 2 Tbsp. of curry powder and mix well. Add in a tsp. of salt and a Tbsp. of turbinado sugar pour over the popcorn and toss. You can add in some more sugar or salt while you toss.

Buffalo – Melt 6 Tbsp. of butter and mix in 1/3 cup of Buffalo sauce toss in your popcorn and mix well. Add in ½ cup of crumbled Blue cheese and some celery leaves. Toss with some salt.  

French Onion – Melt 6 Tbsp. of butter with a packet of French onion soup/dip mix and toss with warm popcorn. Sprinkle in a package of French fried onions.

Salt and Vinegar – Combine ¼ cup of malt vinegar with 2 tsp. of salt and pour into a clean spray bottle. Shake well to dissolve all of the salt and spray over the popcorn.

There you have it many ways that you can make your popcorn more interesting. You can even make small batches of a few and get your mom to do a taste test to see which she likes best. Pair you savoury popcorn with some nice wine or other cool beverage and enjoy. 

Painted Wooden Spoons

Only a few more days until Mother’s Day and this week we’re showing you how to make a simple and easy gift...painted wooden spoons.

You can make this for any occasion; a house warming would be a great idea too.

You will need some wooden spoons. You can go to a dollar store to pick up some inexpensive ones or you can go to a kitchen store and buy good quality spoons; you can even make your own wooden spoons if you have the time and skills. If you get the shiny type spoons, you may have to sand them down a bit before painting.

Before we get started we should mention that you would probably want some sort of protectant or curing done if you want to actually use the spoons and not just have them as a decorative item in your kitchen - or else be really careful not to let the painted part touch the food. You can use a food safe protectant or you can cure the spoons (like in this blog here).

We’re going to paint the spoons in an ombre sort of way and we’ve chosen to do them in shades of blue. You can certainly do them this way or you can make the handles a solid colour or a variety of colours. They don’t all have to match and they can be in whatever colours you choose.

We just kind of went for it. We used sponge brushes to apply our paint and we just eyeballed the stripes. You can use painter’s tape if you want it to be more exact and straight.

We put the painted spoons in a mug to dry so that they weren't laying flat on the newspaper getting stuck to things. 

After doing one coat of each colour, we let the spoons dry or a few hours and then applied another coat.

We let them completely dry for a few days.

Since we are just using the spoons as decorations, we’re going to leave them as is (that is without a protectant or cure).

To finish off your spoon decoration gift, you can tie them all up with a thick ribbon and give them to mom on Mother’s Day.