Bacon + Caramel Corn = Happy People

Last year during a foodie-friend soup night, my friend Rachel brought bacon bourbon caramel corn as an appetizer/dessert. As you can imagine, the dish was a hit! If you attended last May's Cookies for Kids' Cancer, you might have snagged a bag of this deliciousness for yourself.

When trying to think of something unique yet crowd-pleasing for my office's Friday treat club, I quickly thought of doing the bacon bourbon caramel corn. I know my colleagues would enjoy the treat. I decided to do one batch of the full-on bacon and bourbon and the other batch of a regular-old caramel. 

Luckily, Rachel had blogged about making the caramel corn, so all I had to do was follow along with her instructions.

For the "regular" batch, I followed the recipe exactly (by the way, five quarts of popped popcorn is 20 cups), except that I just omitted the bacon and the bourbon. This batch was fantastic, and I could eat lots and lots ... and lots and lots of it in just one sitting. The caramel flavor is great and the popcorn stayed crisp and wonderfully buttery. 

For the other batch, I followed Rachel's recipe to a T. While this batch was good, too -- and got rave reviews at work -- the bourbon smell was very pronounced and I think there might have been just a bit too much in that batch. The popcorn also seemed to shrink a bit. But, like I said, it was still good and the bowl was just about empty by the end of the day. The sweet-salt taste is fantastic.

One thing that worked well for me (probably because I can get a little messy in the kitchen) was to divide the popped popcorn  into two big bowls, pour the caramel sauce on top and mix that way, rather than in the jelly roll pan. I tried it this way the first time, and it was a little too messy.

Even if the bacon and bourbon portion of the recipe weirds you out, try making the regular caramel corn. You'll be glad you did -- and you'll be especially glad when there is a little extra caramel left on the spatula you've been using. Yum!

Mini Corn Dogs

When we got invited to a Super Bowl party, I knew I wanted to make some fun. Luckily, one of my favorite food blogs, Iowa Girl Eats, had some great party-ready finger food recipes. I was instantly drawn to the mini corn dogs, as I love corn dogs, but don't get to enjoy them that often.

If you like corn dogs, these are a great way to satisfy the craving. They're super easy and make a perfect meal with the leftovers you're bound to have because the recipe makes a ton!

I followed Kristin's recipe exactly, and I opted for her applesauce substitute for butter to make them a teeny bit more healthy.

I also used Lou's Garrett Valley Naturals all-beef franks from Outpost.

To serve them, I put out small bowls of honey mustard and ketchup spiced up with Sriracha.

They were a hit at the party, and Nate and I enjoyed them for additional meals later in the week.

BBQ Deviled Eggs

I needed an appetizer to take to my parents' house for a Saturday evening Easter dinner. I knew I wanted to do something with eggs, and coming across these two BBQ Deviled Egg recipes--one from Southern Living and one from Very Culinary blog (thanks @Burp_Blog for the heads up!)--made me make my decision.

I decided to make up my own recipe based on the two I found:

• 8 hard-boiled eggs, peeled


• 1/4 cup mayo


• 1 teas. honey mustard


• 1/8 teas. salt


• 1/8 teas. hot sauce


• a few drops of liquid smoke


• 1 Tbs. (plus a bit extra) BBQ sauce (I love Saz's BBQ sauce)


• 2 strips cherrywood-smoked bacon, cooked and crumbled (be sure these are chopped pretty small if you're using a piping bag)


• smoked paprika--a few shakes for the mix plus a few shakes for the top of the eggs


• about 2 tbs. sliced green onions

Cut the peeled eggs in half and carefully remove the yolks (I also like to slice a bit of the white part off the bottom of the eggs so that they stay put on a plate, but it's not a necessary step). Put the yolks in a bowl with the rest of the ingredients (minus the green onions) and mix well.

Take a Zip-loc bag and fill the bag with the mixture, using a rubber spatula to get all of the mix at the bottom of the bag. Snip a corner of the bag to make a piping bag. Fill the insides of the eggs with the mix. Top with a few shakes of paprika and green onions.

These deviled eggs were really, really good. I would definitely make them again. They were really easy to make (other than peeling the eggs--I have some troubles with that). They were a big with our small group.