Rebecca's Overnight: Making Gramma Martha's Caramel Corn

Rebecca came to spend the night last night.  Before she came I asked her what she wanted. Here are her replies:

1. Dinner? Mac and Cheese and Hot dogs

2. Movie? Ice Age

3. Activities? Reading, Art and Cooking

4. Snack? Gramma Martha's Caramel Corn

5. Breakfast? Blueberry Pancakes

6. TV? Berenstein Bears

7. Book? The Land of the Big Red Apple (Laura Ingels Wilder's continuing series, Little House, about her marriage and her own little girl, Rose.) It's a chapter book so we read 1 or 2 chapters after she gets into pajamas, brushes her teeth, and gets under the covers. I read it out loud to her.

Ice Age, the movie, was really good. When the viewer thinks Diego, the saber-toothed tiger, is dead, Rebecca's eyes got all teary and her mouth turned downward. I told her, "Don't worry, darling. The movie has a really happy ending or I wouldn't show it to you."  She loved the baby in the movie just as much as I did.

After dinner, I popped two bags of popcorn in the microwave. Here's the recipe:

Gramma Martha's Caramel Corn

1. Pop 3 1/2 quarts of popcorn

2. Pour it into a deep turkey pan or some other pan that is at least 4 or 5 inches deep and large.

3. In a saucepan put 1 cup brown sugar, 1/4 cup corn syrup, 1/2 tsp salt. Mix together.

4. Cook on medium heat until bubbly-cook for 5 minutes (lower the heat a bit so it won't burn)

5. Take off the stove.

6. Put in 1/2 tsp baking soda, mix it in (it will rise up to the top)

7. Pour the mixture all over the popcorn, mix it around with wooden spoon (it's really hot so be careful)

8. Place in 200 degree oven for 60 minutes (set the timer for 30 minutes at first and turn it all over again)

9. Take out of oven, stir into a large bowl, mix again, breaking up the big pieces. Let it cool.

10. Put it in an airtight container to store.

I let Rebecca mix the butter, syrup, and brown sugar. The rest is just too hot. Together we watched Ice Age and ate some caramel corn and drank lemonade. We had a great overnight. She fell asleep listening to me read Little House on the Prairie book at 8:15 p.m which is a record. Usually it's 10 or 11 p.m.

This morning we ate blueberry pancakes and drew pictures and painted. I particularly liked the drawing she made of herself, Aiden, Angel, and Ava wearing bright red clothing. I'll post it next time.We ran to Target for a quick birthday present and I brought her home at 11:30 a.m..

My house seems really quiet tonight.