Microwave Caramel Popcorn

This should be a hit in a popcorn-eating family like ours. (That's you Katie and Dana. If you get tired of peanut butter and regular, you could try this out!) It takes under 10 minutes, and I think the kids would have fun helping shake the bag.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup butter (comments said you can reduce this by about half and it's still good)
  
• 2 cups brown sugar
• 1/2 cup corn syrup
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 5 quarts popped popcorn

Directions:

• Pop the popcorn in a regular popper. For five quarts, it's about a cup.
• Put popcorn in a paper grocery bag.
• Microwave butter, sugar, corn syrup, and vanilla until it boils one minute.
• Stir the baking soda into the caramel mixture.
• Pour it over the popcorn in the bag, and shake it up.
• Put the whole bag into the microwave for another 30 seconds, and shake again.
• Spread out popcorn on wax paper to cool.

Yummy! And cheap. I was looking for a movie treat that used stuff I had around. I think this is one that I will use again and again. I forgot to take a picture. I'll take one next time and add it to this post.

Healthy Banana Muffins

These muffins have become my new favorites, especially for breakfast. Since cereal is expensive (at least for us), I freeze them and can eat one or two for breakfast instead.

Ingredients:

• 1 ¼ cup rolled oats
• 1 ½ cup oat flour (refer to #3)
• 1/2 cup plain, low fat yogurt
• 1/2 cup low fat milk or soy milk
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/3 cup sunflower oil
• 2 large, really ripe bananas mashed
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 lightly beaten egg
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/4 cup raisins, walnuts or both
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400°
2. Mix rolled oats, yogurt and milk together in a bowl. Let stand for 10 minutes.
3. It will require about 2 cups of rolled oats to make the 1 1/2 cups or oat flour you need. Just pulse the 2 cups rolled oats in the food processor until they turn to a powdery consistency (like dry grits).
4. Now, combine oat flour, salt, sugar, spices, baking powder and baking soda in a separate bowl.
5. Add mashed banana, egg and oil to the rolled oat mixture and mix well.
6. Now add dry oat flour mixture to rolled oat mixture and mix together well. Add in nuts and/or raisins if desired and incorporate evenly. Chocolate chips are great too!
7. Fill greased or lined muffin cups 2/3 of the way. Bake for approximately 16-20 minutes.

*I don't have a fancy food processor so I just use some wheat and some white flour in place of making my own oat flour. I also have used Greek yogurt in place of the regular yogurt, but I don't think it really matters.