All posts by Gina Kleinmartin

Brown sugar cornstarch pudding.

Well, if you know me, and I think you do by now, you know I am going to use that brown sugar from yesterday and make something today. The other day, Van, our son, had his tooth out, and I am making him brown sugar cornstarch pudding. It is more pale than a store bought one, because there is no coloring added, natural or otherwise. But it is a mild, clean, butterscotch flavored pudding.

Starting with 1/4 cup of butter in a double boiler. This was my grandfather’s. It has served our family well. Anyway, if you don’t have a double boiler, put a heatproof bowl over summering water.

Add 1/2 cup brown sugar and a generous pinch of salt, and mix until it is all smooth.

Meanwhile, I added a tsp of vanilla to 1 cup of milk and 3 tablespoons of cornstarch to 1/2 cup milk in a small jar with a lid.

Mix the vanilla milk with the butter sugar until smooth, and let warm up tightly cap the cornstarch milk and shake it like heck.

When the milk is warm, add the cornstarch milk while stirring. Cook until it thickens, about 5 minutes, stirring often, then pour into a bowl to chill. If you don’t want to have a skin form, top with plastic wrap. We love skin here, so no plastic for us!

Brown sugar

All commercial brown sugar is is molasses and sugar. If you ever need brown sugar and you normally purchase it, that’s good to know. If you have molasses.

Me, I would rather have sugar and molasses on hand and just use that. But those days you want brown sugar straight, it’s nice to have it on hand.

But I can’t bring myself to purchase it. We buy molasses by the gallon and sugar in 25# boxes. So, I have started to simply make some in advance.

Since I recently learned that not everyone knows this, here’s a how to.

I am going to start with 6 cups of sugar. No reason. I have my two cup measure out, so that’s where I am. Now, I know I am lucky to have have a kitchen aid, and not everyone does. It is 30 years old, though. if you can find one, please consider it. This is still possible, just not as easy.

I love playing with molasses. It’s a cool non Newtonian fluid!

I can’t say it’s my favorite, because whipped cream, ketchup, and nail polish are all up there.

Anyway, that’s 2 tablespoons of molasses to six cups of sugar, or 1 teaspoon per cup. Let the mixer work for 6 minutes and viola! Brown sugar! Want it darker, add more. Lighter? Add less. Baking cookies? Remember 1cup + 1tsp to simply add while creaming. And you never need to rely on commercial brown sugar again.

Popcorn!

Happy National Popcorn Day!

In honor of this day that is so close to my heart, I will share a few toppings that we love.

And I will make popcorn. Lots of popcorn. 🙂

The ways we love our popcorn. All are guessing 6 quarts popped (about 1/2 heaping cup of kernels) and salted popcorn. If melted butter is mentioned, it’s 2 T of salted butter.

Plain: With Kosher Salt and melted butter. About 2 tsp of Kosher salt.

BBQ: With about 1 heaping Tablespoon leftover BBQ rub and melted butter. We don’t salt this one first.

Pizza: 2 Tablespoons Parmesan or Romano, 1 tsp dried oregano, 1/2 tsp tomato powder (we got ours from Amazon (affiliate link))

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Italian: 2 Tablespoons Parmesan or Romano, 1 tsp dried oregano, 1 tsp garlic powder

Wings: Don’t butter! Mix 2T of hot sauce (like Franks or Durkee’s) with the melted butter before you pour the butter over. Add 1 T blue Cheese powder (again, from Amazon (again, affiliate link)). This powder also makes a good instant blue cheese dressing if you are desperate and don’t have the time or  ingredients to make real Blue Cheese dressing.
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(Our vegetarian friends really love this one. 🙂 )

Curry: 1 tsp Curry  powder, 3/4 tsp each  tumeric and ground ginger and a pinch of cayenne

Old Bay: 2 teaspoons of Old Bay Seasoning!

 

Wet toppings:

pour on carefully or spritz onto salted popcorn

Worchestershiresauce

Malt vinegar

 

Special popcorns:

Sugar popcorn: This one you have to cook differently. Heat your oil in the popping pot with three kernels of popcorn. When the third one pops, add the 1/2 cup of popcorn and 3 Tablespoons of white sugar.  Cook as usual.  Serve as is, no butter or salt.

Happy Popcorn Day!