Tasty Tuesday - Chocolate Drizzled Popcorn

Today is the last PTO meeting of the year. The president traditionally gives a small gift to the Executive Board. I've been trying to figure out what to do this year, as I want to do something meaningful but not chintzy but I have ten people to buy for, so I refuse to go all out.

I came up with what I hope is a brilliant solution. And if they don't like it, then I'm going to eat it myself. Ta da!



I made chocolate drizzled popcorn. YUM! (Not that I sampled any myself, of course.) And totally easy. I'm now debating doing the same thing for teacher gifts at the end of the year since we have a teacher, two aides, and three to four therapists per child, which gets awfully expensive. Oh, plus two bus drivers per child. Yep, I think we're going down this road.

Chocolate Drizzled Popcorn

Ingredients:
Olive oil
Popcorn kernals
Salt
Chocolate melting discs

Directions:
First, make your popcorn. I use the largest metal bowl I can find -- thank you IKEA, btw. I follow the Alton Brown methodology, and boy does it make good and easy popcorn.

Pour just enough oil in the bottom of the bowl to cover it, then add kernals atop it. Cover the bowl with tin foil, and poke some holes in it. Turn the stove on to medium/medium high, and start shaking. Shake, shake, shake until it all stops popping.

Immediately add just enough salt to taste. If you do it while the popcorn is hot, it sticks better without being overly salty. You can, of course, stop here, but ummm go for the best part.

Lay the popcorn on the nonstick surface in a thin layer, like a sil pat or waxed paper. While it is cooling (you want the popcorn to be cool when you put the chocolate on it), melt the chocolate over low heat in a heavy pan (I love my little Le Creuset) or double boiler.

Use a spatula to scoop up just a little of the chocolate, and then drizzle the chocolate over the popcorn. You'll need to shake the spatula like you're trying to get dust off a rug to get the last of the chocolate off it, but that also makes for the best drizzles. Doing small bits of chocolate at a time works best, not that I'd know!

If you get clumps of chocolate, no worries. Just use your spatula to mix up the popcorn, distributing the chocolate. You can put on as much or as little chocolate as you like. You can also mix white and regular chocolates to make it extra fancy. Since it was 10:30 last night before I was halfway done, I declined to do this.



Fingers crossed that everyone on the PTO likes my: The PTO is just a hard kernel with promise without you. Your energy and life make it burst open with opportunity, turning it into a special sweet treat for all the students there. What do you think?

And of course, as always go check out this week's Tempt My Tummy Tuesday with Blessed With Grace!

Enjoy!