National Popcorn Day Review

Popcorn Image Source: Pixabay

National Popcorn Day is held each year on January 19, although there is some debate about the date.  Some say it is celebrated on the 'Big Game' day (Superbowl Sunday).  No one knows the origin of this fun holiday, but whoever began the tradition obviously had good taste.

Source: Pixabay

Having recently moved to Iowa where I can drive about 5 miles in any direction and be surrounded by fields of corn, I became interested in learning more about Popcorn Day. 

What is Popcorn?

Source: Pixabay

Popcorn is a seed that does something nifty when heated.

Corny Facts

There are four kinds of corn. The sweet corn we all love in summertime, dent corn (field corn) that is grown mainly for livestock feed and some food products, Flint corn (best known as Indian corn) used mostly for decoration around harvest time, and popcorn, which is a type of flint corn but has it's own unique characteristics.  Popcorn is grown specifically for popping. You cannot pop sweet corn, for instance, and you wouldn't want to eat field corn. 

History of Popcorn

Popcorn dates back thousands of years.  An interesting bit of history can be found on the website Popcorn . org.

Today, Americans consume over 13 billion quarts of popcorn each year, which translates to about 42 quarts per person.  

Image Source: Pixabay

It is one of the most popular snack foods, and an absolute necessity at a movie theater.  Just wouldn't be the same going to a movie without having popcorn! 

Popcorn is also a favorite around holidays, especially Christmas, as a food, as gifts and as decorations.  Who hasn't strung popcorn as a kid to put on the Christmas tree? 

Cute and Clever Popcorn Gifts

Crocheted Popcorn Playfood

Popcorn Playfood on Etsy

This red and white striped popcorn bag with individual kernels of popcorn  hand sewn to the top is a  fun gift to add to your child's collection of playfood for 'pretend' movie time or snack times.  

Hand crocheted by Kyra of Cottage Grove, Minnesota, it can be found in her Etsy Shop called "The Bossy Princess". 

Popcorn Socks

Funny Socks for Popcorn Lovers

These popcorn socks make the perfect gift for any Popcorn Lover!

Cute socks for popcorn lovers created by Wine A Little Gifts on Etsy.

Popcorn Recipes

The Popcorn website has a large variety of popcorn recipes to suit any occasion.  Some delicious-looking recipes are available on the Popcorn website under Recipe Portal.

A Super Bowl Popcorn Snack  

Caramel Pretzel Nut Popcorn

Caramel Pretzel Nut Popcorn Image Source: AllRecipes

This tasty favorite from AllRecipes would be perfect for the upcoming Super Bowl Sunday or for a weekend of watching any favorite televised sport. 

Directions:

Take 8 cups broken salted pretzels, about 20 cups of popped popcorn and 4 cups of dry roasted peanuts and place them all in a large paper bag (or VERY large bowl). 

Meanwhile, combine 3 cups of brown sugar, 3/4 cup light corn syrup and 1-1/2 cups butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Cook - stirring constantly to melt the butter and dissolve the sugar - until mixture comes to a boil. Continue cooking at full boil for 5 minutes.

Remove from heat and stir in one teaspoon salt, a teaspoon of baking soda and 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract. The mixture begins to foam when you add the baking soda, so you need to use a long spoon to stir.  

Immediately pour the sugar mixture over the popcorn, peanuts and pretzels in the bag. Shake until coated evenly. 

Preparing Perfect Popcorn

Stovetop Popcorn Tips:

• Step 1: Pour enough vegetable oil to just cover the bottom of a pan, turn on medium high heat.  Allow pan to warm. The best popping temperature is between 400 and 460 degrees F. Oil burns at 500 degrees. If your oil starts to smoke, it's too hot.
• Step 2: Add enough kernels to cover the bottom of the pan single layer, shake to coat the kernels with oil, and cover with lid (too many kernels will “blow” the lid).
• Step 3: Corn will begin to pop within 3 minutes. When the popping slows, listen until you can count 2 seconds between pops. Turn off heat and remove pan from stove-top.  Lift the lid to allow steam to escape away from your face.  Steam may burn and remaining kernels may continue to pop.
• Step 4: Add additional flavors, herbs, or spices and enjoy.

*If you prefer microwave popcorn for a quickie snack, simply follow the directions on the package.

More Times to Celebrate Popcorn

Source: Pixabay

October is known as National Popcorn Month

(c) National Popcorn Day Review written by Wednesday  Elf 

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Yummy, Gooey, Chocolate, Vanilla, Delicious Dessert - Recipe Review

Reviewing a Delicious Dessert 

I imagine that this dessert has an official name in a cookbook or an online cooking or recipe website somewhere.  But when I first acquired the recipe from a co-worker who had brought the dessert to work to share, she called it 'yummy, gooey, chocolate, vanilla delicious dessert'.  And that's how it has been known in our household ever since! We have made it many times and always enjoy it immensely.  

If you are looking for a non-fattening dessert, you won't find it here among the cream cheese, powdered sugar, Cool Whip, butter, puddings and milk. Not to mention the walnuts and Hershey Bar. But for a delicious dessert, it is unparalleled in taste!

Recipe for Delicious Dessert 

CRUST:

• 1-1/2 stick of margarine or butter – melt
• 1-1/2 c. chopped walnuts (or pecans)
• 1-1/2 c. flour

Mix & press into bottom of oblong pan.  Bake at 350◦ for 20 minutes or until lightly brown.

LET COOL COMPLETELY

FILLING #1

• 1 8 oz package cream cheese
• 1 c. powdered sugar
• 1 c. Cool Whip (buy 9 oz carton – more goes on top)

Spread on cooled crust.

FILLING #2

• 2 packages each of instant vanilla and chocolate pudding.
• Combine and add 4 c. milk (only half what box says).
• Stir until firm and spread over filling #1

TOPPING:

• Spread remaining Cool Whip.

• Shave Hershey bar over the top.

CHILL

SERVE

SUMMARY NOTES

The most interesting part of this dessert (which makes a WHOLE lot, filling the 12 x 10 x 2 inch pan I use as seen in these photos) is that it KEEPS really well and tastes even better the longer it is kept chilled in the refrigerator. Of course you could make a smaller batch, but we most often make it for a larger gathering or a party occasion. And this yummy dessert seldom lasts long enough to store more than one or two days around us! 

More Puddling Desserts

Recipe Reviews on ReviewThisRecipe.com 




(c) Wednesday Elf 1/5/2019

#All images are personal photos by (c) Wednesday Elf

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River Street Sweets – Savannah Candy Store Review

(c) Wednesday Elf

The Sweet Taste of Savannah!

On historic River Street in Savannah, Georgia you will find a candy store that has been renowned for their world famous pralines for 44 years.  Everyone who walks into River Street Sweets will be enticed to try a sample of the pralines or fudge or other candies on display. 

A simple taste of these delicious handmade candies will also find you purchasing a bit of this, a little of that…. and of course a few pralines. So many sweet treats to choose from.  One whole wall is filled with every flavor of saltwater taffy you can imagine.  I have yet to go into the store without leaving with at least a few tasty tidbits. 

Oh Fudge – How River Street Sweets Came About

Chocolate Fudge - River Street Sweets

Stan & Pam Strickland had a gift shop on River Street called The Cotton Bale where they sold knick-knacks and Christmas ornaments.  In 1978 they were at a gift market trade show in Atlanta with their daughter Jennifer and son Tim looking for new items for their store .  Tim, age 11, found a fudge pot and begged his parents to put it in the store.  

They finally agreed and a week later, on St. Patrick's Day, the first batch of chocolate mint fudge was made. It sold like crazy and soon it became obvious that candy was much more popular than the gifts they had been featuring.  Within six months, River Street Sweets became a full-fledged candy store.

Today, they are known worldwide for their gourmet southern sweets. On a visit to River Street Sweets you can watch candy makers dip pralines onto a giant marble slab Stan bought from a gravestone company. You can also see them stir glazed pecans in  huge copper kettles and see the 100-year-old saltwater taffy machine in action. They make their sweets in the stores and also ship them out around the world.

Come on a video tour of Savannah Street Sweets

The Savannah store is run today by grown-up Jennifer and Tim, while just down the street Stan "The Candy Man" operates Savannah's Candy Kitchen, the largest candy store in the south since 1990. 

If you cannot make it to Savannah, other River Street Sweets stores can be found in the Mall of Georgia in North Atlanta, in two places in Charleston, SC, and in Myrtle Beach, SC, as well as Key West and Lancaster Maryland. New locations will soon be coming to Texas, New Jersey and South Carolina.  You can also order them online from Amazon or through their catalog or website.  

Holiday and Gift Baskets

Office Party Basket - River Street Sweets

The wicker gift baskets are popular with tourists for taking home to friends & family.  They are irresistibly filled with delights such as pralines, bear claws, glazed pecans, hand-stretched peanut brittle, nougat log rolls and creamy chocolate fudge. Or grab a box of your favorite sweets (mine is fudge with walnuts). 

All candies sold by River Street Sweets are made using their own family recipes to make the finest and freshest handmade Southern candies around.  Not surprising, their best sellers are the glazed pecans, their bear claws and the oh-so-delicious pecan pralines.

How the Pralines are Made

A Sweet Treat you'll love. 

(c) Travel Review written by Wednesday Elf (12/22/2018)

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Advice from the Ocean T-Shirt Review

 Advice From Nature Products

(c) Elf. Ryan's New Beach-Themed T-Shirt

I recently moved from the Georgia Coast to the Midwest to be near family. Before I left Georgia, I wanted to gather together a few beach-related mementos to give to my family members who had all visited me in Georgia at one time or another.  I thought the items would be a nice memory of our time spent together in the South. 

One family member is my grandson, Ryan.  At age 16, it's harder to choose a gift he'd enjoy as teenagers have set preferences. When I saw this T-shirt with an ocean theme found in the Tybee island, Georgia Marine Science Center, I thought “this is the perfect gift”. Ryan loves the beach and the times he spent at the Atlantic Ocean. 

Earth Sun Moon Trading Company

The T-shirt is the product of Earth, Sun and Moon Trading Company, located in Grove City, Pennsylvania.  The themes of their t-shirts reflect the company's mission to be “Good to the Earth”. You can read about their commitment here.

(c) Elf. Advice from Nature

Earth, Sun & Moon's “Advice” nature themes have scenes with a large number of animals, birds and insects we share our earth with (i.e. Advice from a Buffalo, Advice from a Bear, Advice from a Cardinal), as well as places such as this one “Advice from the Beach”. Each design is expertly printed in beautiful colors and features words of advice presented in a funny and delightful way.

Advice from the Beach Slogan

For instance, the words for this 'Advice from the Beach' T-shirt state:

Be shore of yourself | Come out of your shell | Take time to relax and coast | Avoid pier pressure | Sea life's beauty | Don't get tide down | Make waves!

As you can see in the intro photo, Ryan enjoyed receiving this reminder from Grandma of his visits to the Georgia Coast, beach and ocean.

Summary

So if you are shopping for a nature lover, you will find the choices from Earth Sun Moon to be unique and fun for both the gift giver and the recipient. The company has been creating their T-shirts, sweatshirts, hats and more since 1996, all with original designs. Therefore, there is sure to be a design of an animal or outdoor theme that perfectly fits any occasion, like this ocean theme for Ryan did for me. 








(c) Wednesday Elf Product Review written 12/8/2018

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Wired by Julie Garwood – Book Review

Wired by Julie Garwood

Author Julie Garwood is well known for her romantic suspense novels, particularly those featuring her continuing and recurring characters in the Buchanan family. Her latest in the series is Wired where a beautiful computer hacker (Allison Trent) has to collaborate reluctantly with a sexy hotshot FBI agent (Liam Scott).

Synopsis 

Allison has a brilliant mind for computers.  She loves to write code and has secretly been known to 'hack' into computers.  Before you condemn her for this behavior, you have to realize that she has only done it occasionally to help others who have been cheated by unscrupulous scammers and to 'right the wrong'. 

Source: Pixabay

FBI agent Liam Scott has discovered a serious problem ~ a deep leak within his own department leaking information about ongoing investigations. He needs a top-notch hacker unknown in his field to secretly break into the FBI computers and find the traitor. 

Allison is friends with Jordan (Buchanan) Clayborne, a genius in the technology field, whose husband and brother are both FBI agents and friends with Liam. With Jordan's help, Liam arranges to meet Allison and asks her to take on the job.  There is only one problem – Allison wants nothing to do with his job and turns him down.

Liam doesn't know that Allison is hiding her hacking secrets that she doesn't want the FBI to uncover.  She knows what she has done would be considered illegal by the FBI, even though she never benefited from her hacking and only helped others. 

How Allison's refusal to help is resolved, how she discovers the traitor and how romance blooms between her and Liam make for a very delightful story. 

Author Julie Garwood

Author Julie Garwood

Julie Garwood was born in Kansas City and today lives in Leawood, Kansas. She married young and had three children. Julie was always interested in writing, but waited until her youngest child was in school before she began writing full time.  She has written many best-selling novels.  

One of her most popular novels, FOR THE ROSES, was adapted for a HALLMARK HALL OF FAME production. 

Ms. Garwood has written 27 novels of romance since 1985, either in the historical fiction field or that of suspense.  Her suspense novels usually involve one or more FBI agents.  In each of  her books you will find a recurring theme based on family, loyalty and honor. Her romantic scenes are done in good taste. Her humor and poignancy keep readers coming back for more. 

Julie states her goals as:

“I want my readers to laugh and cry and fall in love. Basically, I want them to escape into another world for a little while and afterwards to feel as though they’ve been on a great adventure.” 

More Romantic Suspense by Garwood

Pixabay

Wired is Julie Garwood's most recent book (published 2017) involving one or more of the Buchanan family.  The family consists of the mom & dad (who is a judge), six brothers and two sisters, all of whom are involved in either the technology field or law enforcement, most particularly the FBI. I've always enjoyed reading series with continuing characters and Garwood's books are among my favorites. 

So, if you read and enjoy Wired, be sure and seek out some of the other Julie Garwood stories involving the Buchanan family. 

For more book reviews, check out the list at:
ReviewThisBooks.com

(c) Wednesday Elf, November 24, 2018

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Reviewing National Vanilla Cupcake Day

November 10th is known as National Vanilla Cupcake Day ~ an unofficial, but tasty, holiday.

Cupcakes, Fairy Cakes, Patty Cakes

Image Source: Pixabay

Cupcakes are single serving cakes which are thought to have gotten their name from being baked in cup-shaped molds.  In the United Kingdom they are known as fairy cakes and in Australia they are called patty cakes. 

Vanilla cupcakes are made by adding vanilla extract to the cake batter and sometimes to the icing.

Did You Know…

...that vanilla is the only fruit-bearing and edible orchid in the world?

Vanilla is  extracted from the seed pods of the Vanilla orchid. It is one of the most expensive spices in the world (second only to saffron).  

Plain Vanilla

Even though Vanilla is expensive, it is one of the most popular flavors in the world. Today, it is used in a wide variety of food items and even in products, such as perfumes, soaps, and candles.  Vanilla is considered to be one of the plainest flavors available; thus, the term plain vanilla has come to be used to describe things that are very basic and ordinary.

Vanilla Cupcake Recipes

*For a quick way to bake vanilla cupcakes, one can always use a store-bought mix.

**For those who enjoy creative baking from scratch, I found two fabulous vanilla cupcake recipes for you to try.

The Most Amazing Vanilla Cupcakes

The first one is called The Most Amazing Vanilla Cupcakes recipe and is from Rachel Farnsworth of The Stay At Home Chef .

It is an easy to make one-bowl recipe. You'll never need another boxed mix again!

Rachel also includes some very helpful cupcake baking tips in her blog post for her Most Amazing Vanilla Cupcakes recipe.

Vanilla Cupcakes from Live Well Bake Often

The second Vanilla Cupcake recipe is from Danielle of Live Well Bake Often. 

Danielle's secret ingredient to her delicious cupcakes is sour cream! 

*Check out both Rachel's and Danielle's recipes before you begin baking your own vanilla-cupcake-recipe. 

Vanilla versus Chocolate

If you prefer chocolate instead of vanilla, you only have to wait for 11 months to celebrate Chocolate Cupcake Day on October 18.

Happy National Vanilla Cupcake Day

November 10 

Be sure and share your baked goodies with your family and friends. 

For more Cupcake Reviews & Recipes
Check out ReviewThisReviews: Cupcakes

Written by Wednesday Elf 11/10/2018

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Review of the Holiday National Name Your Car Day

Source: Pixabay

October 2nd is 'National Name Your Car Day'.  There is no real origin or reason why October 2nd was chosen, but it's the perfect day to give your favorite car a name if it doesn't already have one.  We spend a lot of time in our cars, and caring for them, so they deserve a name.    Just remember, cars have feelings – so don't give your 'ride' an embarrassing name!

Guys with 'muscle cars' or sports cars should go with strong names that reflect the car and the owner.  “Chick” cars need sweet names.  Luxury cars probably need a formal or regal-sounding name. 

Some Famous Movie Car Names

• Herbie, the Love Bug
• Lightning McQueen from Cars
• Kit from Knight Rider
• General Lee from The Dukes of Hazzard
• Bandit from Smokey and the Bandit

Our Cars 

(c) Personal Photo

We have had a lot of different cars over the years, but our favorite were the Volkswagen Beetles.  We had a succession of Bugs, one after another, ranging from Bugs to Campers to Vans.  The last ones we had included a Super-Beetle (the blue one in the picture) and our son had the Orange one.  The Orange VW was the only car with a real name.  We called it ~ appropriately ~ 'The Pumpkin'.

Do you have a name for your car(s)?  Come tell me what kind of car and what you call it. 

Happy 'National Name-Your-Car Day'

For More Holiday Articles, check out

ReviewThisReviews: Holidays

(c) Wednesday Elf.  Article originally written on 10/01/2013 for another site and updated for Review This!

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