Made with Love Week – Sweet, Savory and Tart Popcorn

Today is Tuesday and that means “Kids Can Cook Toosday”!

In connection with “Made with Love Week” my kids will be helping me in the kitchen with a popcorn treat and Kacey, from Stay at Home Artist, has a fun Valentine printable for them to color.

My family has a bit of an ongoing addiction to popcorn. We enjoyed it growing up and we continue to enjoy it as adults! Apparently I have passed this “lust” for popcorn onto my children. They love popcorn and at the slightest mention of it they begin to drool. It makes a great after school snack and extremely budget friendly!

I imagine that is how it became a favorite snack of my mothers, who grew up with 4 other siblings, when she was a little girl. She distinctly remembers my grandmother (her mother) making popcorn in a large lid-covered kettle on the stove on numerous occasions. Before the wondrous age of microwaves and air poppers that was how it was done. Many people still make it that way and our family happens to be one however we use a stove top popcorn popper.

The first stove top popcorn popper was purchased by my father for my mother (undoubtingly because he knew her love of it was so fierce) and so the tradition began. That original popcorn popper lasted for about 20 years until it became so thin on the bottom that it cracked. It was quickly replaced with quite a fortuitous find at an antique shop and so the tradition continues.

My mother is by far the best popcorn popper there is and I hope someday my children will say the same about me. When I brought up the idea of a Valentine’s Day snack for their friends I wasn’t surprised when popcorn topped the list! We concocted a sweet, savory, and tart white chocolate popcorn treat that should tickle every child’s taste buds!

Sweet, Savory, and Tart Popcorn

• 10 cups popped popcorn (air, stove, or microwave popped will do), salted
• 1 cup dried apricots, chopped into small pieces
• 1 cup craisins
• 1 cup white chocolate chips
• 1 tsp vegetable shortening such as Crisco

Spread the popped popcorn out on a cookie sheet.  Drop the dried fruit sporadically on top of the popcorn.  Melt the white chocolate chips and shortening in a double boiler and drizzle over the popcorn mixture.  Allow to harden then bag it up and hand out to friends!  Pop the popcorn and melt the chocolate and let the kids do the rest.

Now head on over to Stay at Home Artist to print your Valentine Card!

You all know how I feel about getting kids into the kitchen.  Frigidaire feels it’s just as important!  Check out their website, Make Time For Change, and join!  They will donate $1 to Save the Children when you do.