Caramel Corn

So this was the temperature at 8 pm last night when I decided I couldn't put off my tempo run any longer. Call me a weinie, but I ran inside. Plan was to run 6 miles at 9 minute pace. My Garmin cannot pace indoors but only functions as a stopwatch. It's 7 laps for a mile and I can't do complicated math while I run so I decided to try to run each lap in 1:15 which put me at 8:45 pace. I did well for about 4.5 miles, then I could feel that I was no longer running aerobically. I made it to 5 miles then slowed it down for a warmdown. I ended up doing the last mile in 10:15 so I ended up running for 54 minutes anyway.

This was the temperature today after I did my 13 mile run this evening. Yup, did that inside too. I figured I'm training for a November race and it's not going to be 90 in November. I think taking a week off last week actually helped because my legs felt pretty good today, even after the tempo run last night and a full day of work today. Today was an easy pace. Ended up running 13 in 2:19, counting my Gatorade break after 7 miles. And yes, I often drive over a 100 miles a day.

Now onto my Caramel Corn

This is the caramel corn I give out to all my family and co-workers at Christmas. It took first place at the Indiana State Fair last year and first place at the Johnson County fair this year.

Ingredients
2 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup corn syrup
2 sticks of butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 bags of popped microwave popcorn

Directions
Preheat oven to 250 degrees.

On stove top in a heavy saucepan, melt butter, corn syrup, and brown sugar together. Bring it to a rolling boil at 250 degrees on a candy thermometer for 5 minutes before removing from heat.

Rolling Boil

Put your popcorn in a large container for stirring. I use a canning pot. Add vanilla, salt, and baking soda to sugar mixture and stir. Be careful. The hot sugar mixture will foam up.

Use a deep pan; it foams a lot!

Pour hot sugar mixture over popcorn and stir until well coated.

Make sure you use a BIG container; it's really hot and really sticky

Pour into roasting pan and bake for 30 minutes.

This what it looks like after 30 minutes

Stir popcorn, then return to oven and bake for 30 more minutes.

Stir well!

Remove from oven and pour out on wax paper. Use a wooden spoon, then your fingers to separate all the popcorn pieces so you don't end up with big clumps and each piece is well coated with caramel. This caramel corn is VERY buttery; your fingers will get VERY buttery.



 Store in airtight container after completely cooled.

ENJOY!!