Caramel Popcorn!!

We are a movie family.  We love watching old movies with great popcorn.  My hubby makes the best.  In fact, here is a funny story about us.

We had just had our fifth baby.  We would have a full day with the kids and want to go to bed but our precious little guy didn't like to go to sleep until around 1 a.m.  My hubby sympathized with me and would stay up till our little guy would finally give it up to sleep-land.  We passed the time by watching old movies.  He would pop a huge bowl of buttery popcorn for me and a huge bowl of buttery popcorn for him.  When I say huge, I mean HUGE!  They were 12 quart bowls!!  After a week+ of eating these wonderful buttery bowls of popcorn, we both began to notice our clothing was getting snug.  At this point, we had a ah-ah moment.  I wondered if this low cal snack food could be the culprit!  YIKES!! Have you ever looked at the calorie count for popcorn laden with butter and Parmesan cheese??!!

Okay here is the nutritional info for ONE CUP of popcorn:

Calories: 78; Fat: 5.27 g; Carbs 7.27 g; Protein .96 g

Calorie breakdown: 59% fat, 36% carbs, 5% protein

There are 78 calories in 1 cup of Buttered Popcorn popped in oil.

Can you get the picture of how many cups of popcorn my hubby and I single-handedly ate each night?  Let me help you with the math...that is at least 24 cups of butter-laden popcorn which adds up to 1872 calories just in our midnight snack.  Now, you have to add calories to this 1872 as the calories spiraled up to even greater heights due to the extra Parmesan cheese we sprinkled...okay poured onto the popcorn.  Call us overachievers! :)  

To add insult to injury for our snack food delight, we would usually start eating around 11 p.m.!!  Okay, I got the message loud and clear as I could only blame the extra weight gained on just having a baby for so long.  We curbed our snacking to occasional treats, which leads me to my new popcorn recipes that our WHOLE family indulged in eating.  I just make sure I give myself a small bowl and don't go back for seconds. :)  Hope you enjoy the popcorn as much as we did/do.

Caramel Popcorn

16 cups lightly salted popped popcorn
1 cup butter
1 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup karo syrup

Step One:

Heat in butter, brown sugar and light karo syrup in saucepan and boil for 3 minutes.  Remove from heat and pour over the popped popcorn.  Mix well.

Step Two:

Place on parchment paper covered cookie sheet.  Bake 300 degrees F for 15 minutes.

If you have any left, store in sealed container. :)