Holiday Popcorns:

Since I didn't get to see my family at all this Christmas I had to make my mom's cinnamon popcorn myself :) It went pretty quickly and I love eating it, but some people think it's kinda weird...

 Pop 5 qts of popcorn (or if you live in my world three bags of microwave popcorn) In the mean time in a glass measuring pour 9 oz of Red Hots (I use a little more), a stick of butter 1/2 tea spoon of salt, and 1/4 cup of white Karo syrup...When your microwave is free melt the candy, stirit about every minute to minute and 30 seconds...once it's melted and starting to boil put it in for 1 minute (I found that having a microwave save plate under it is a good idea!)

Put popcorn in a brown paper bag, pour the hot molten lava out of the measuring cup and over the popcorn

Shake up the bag to get the cinnamon mixture all over the popcorn. Then put the whole bag in the microwave, cook it for one minute, take it out and shake the bag, then put it in and microwave one minute...do this so that the bag is microwaved a total of 3 times

Then lay it out on a big cookie sheet or jelly roll pan to "dry" it took about 10 minutes the day I did it...

Put it in a air tight bowl or gallon zip lock bag, it made probably about 2 1/2 gallons

In the bag caramel corn

This recipe, via the "new" Berea Cook Book said to spray the brown paper bag with cooking spray, this ended up being a really helpful hint.

It also said to keep the popcorn warm until the caramel was ready, I'm not sure why or if it even really matters, but I turned the oven on to 170 and did keep it warm

After washing the red hot residue out of my glass measuring cup, I added 1 stick of butter, 1 cup of dark brown sugar, 1/4 cup of white Karo syrup, and 1/2 tea spoon of salt

With the Cinnamon Popcorn I had Andy hold the bag open so I could pour the hot lava mixture over the popcorn, but it didn't work very well. I think a safer approach is to put the bag, already sprayed with cooking spray, on a kitchen chair with the popcorn in it

Microwave the mixture for 2 minutes, and again a microwave safe plate under it is probably a really good idea

Add 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda and stir it in

When it looks all foamy it's ready to go on the popcorn

It always says to just shake the bag (like the Cinnamon Popcorn) but I didn't feel that worked very well, so with the initial pour and after all 3 one minute rides in the microwave I stirred the mixture with a wooden spoon, it worked out much better and covered the popcorn more efficiently. 

Lay it out for also about 10-15 minutes and sack it up. Oh, then you should probably eat some ;)