Popping with Possibilities - Infused Popcorn

I'm so glad you're here and welcome , friends , to the podcast that explores the intersection of food culture and cannabis . I'm helping cooks make great edibles at home and I'm very glad that you're here with me today Because we are talking about something that I absolutely adore but haven't actually eaten in a while , and that's popcorn .

But we'll get into that in a minute . If you're just joining me for the first time , I'm so glad that you found me . I would love to hear how you found the show and if you've been here for a while , I so appreciate those listeners who have been following along for quite some time .

I mean , I've been doing this podcast now for five and a half years , so I've gone to know a few of you out there and I'm able to connect with a number of you over at the Bite Me Cannabis Club , and if you're curious about that , you can always head to joinbitemecom to learn more . Because I've changed some things up a little bit .

I'll leave it at that , except let me just say it has to do with an unsubscription . I wrestle with this quite a bit . I'm doing a buy nothing year and

I don't know if I've mentioned this on the show or not . Maybe I have . If I have forgive me my memory maybe too many edibles .

That could be what it is , and in large part it's not necessarily because I feel like I spend too much , but it's just so easy to spend money on things that I personally don't feel I often really need , and a lot of the times we live in a culture where the solution to all of our problems is going out and buying something new and I just really want to

jump off of that hamster wheel . A big part of what I'm doing is also canceling unnecessary subscriptions , because it seems to be death by a thousand subscriptions these days . I know the saying is death by a thousand paper cuts , but now it feels like subscriptions and subscription models is sort of the way that things are really going .

I have so many subscriptions on my personal side there's a number also on the podcast side some of which I've been able to cancel , others which I cannot , of course , because they're necessary to run the show .

But on the personal side is a bit of a different matter , like do I really need to be subscribed to like three or four different streaming services online ? I'm sure we all feel that same way . I changed some things up with the Bite Me Cannabis Club because I just didn't want to be another subscription .

Go check it out at joinbitemecom Over the weekend at the time of this recording admittedly I'm a little bit behind we just had a huge ice storm here where I am and it's been pretty brutal . There's been people who've been without power for

three days . Going on four days now the hydro trucks have been working overtime . I am very fortunate that I have not lost power for longer than a couple of hours during this particular time , but the photos from it are pretty eerie . There was so much ice buildup on all the trees .

The first night of the storm I spent the entire night awake because all I could hear was the crash of tree branches falling to the ground , and it was also partly the ice that was coming off the trees when they fell .

But the ice was so heavy that it just downed trees and huge branches , and now the front lawn at my dad's house looks like a wasteland of broken tree branches .

It was kind of scary , I have to admit , when I was lying there awake at night maybe a little bit high as well , because I had , you know , consumed my evening edible and when I went to go to sleep I thought , oh , you know , it's just another night . And then I never actually did sleep .

I kept thinking is one of these tree branches going to fall on the house ? Is it going to come through a window and kill me ? Some kind of final destination shit ?

I wasn't really sure , but it was a pretty scary night and then it lasted all through the next day as well , and just the carnage is really tragic , because there's certain trees on this property that , I guess , brings some memories , if you will . There's an ironwood tree that my mom adored and she had planted many years ago .

They used to have beautiful gardens here . They've been mostly taken out over the years because they just became too much for my parents to handle as they got older . They used to have beautiful gardens , even had one of those garden tours come to their house once , like many moons ago , and that was when the gardens were definitely at their peak .

This ironwood tree , my mom adored it and it cracked . I think the tree will survive , but the huge branch off the tree that came up from the trunk cracked , branch off the tree that came up from the trunk cracked , which is stunning in and of itself because ironwood , unsurprisingly , is a very hard wood . So this was kind of shocking .

And then another tree that fell . My dad had planted a willow tree at the one corner of the property . Must be 30 years ago , 35 years ago , it's hard to say now . I'd have to really sit and think for a second because , god , I'm getting old . But that tree , the entire tree , fell , just cracked somewhere along the trunk and fell over .

And that's kind of tragic because anytime , like my girls would come out or my sister was here or people would come to visit , photos often got taken under that tree because it just had a vibe and the light went on a beautiful summer day . It was so lovely , it's such a special tree and that one's gone completely as well .

So I'm very fortunate and grateful , of course , that we didn't have to go without power . I'm not sure how my dad would have handled it in his nineties . I do know , actually , because when the power did go out a couple of times for an hour or two .

Of course , we weren't sure how long the power would be out for , and so his response was always I'm just going to go to bed , because even my father in his 90s is now pretty reliant on Having electricity .

Entertain yourself , I mean , he watches a lot of YouTube and he likes his satellite TV . And fortunately nobody seemed to get hurt during this storm , because in town I'm sort of on the outskirts of town in town so many trees were down , which , of course , is why all the power , a lot of the power lines , were out . Nobody got hurt , thankfully .

It's made me feel grateful for friends and family , people who've been reaching out and saying hey , I have power if you need to come out . And you know , I had my kids here as well because they needed to charge phones and wanted a hot meal , which they didn't have at their place because they had no electricity .

It's just nice to see people coming together and supporting each other in a time of great difficulty , because the number of downed trees was just wild . That's created a lot of problems for a lot of people , but thankfully nobody got hurt . So that is the one good thing I guess you can take away from that and just that sort of renewed sense of community .

You never know when a freak ice storm is going to pop up and create all kinds of problems for people . Just be grateful for your electricity , for your trees that aren't going to fall on your head , and thank your neighbor next time you see them , just for being a good neighbor . Hopefully you have good neighbors .

So , anyway , this was sort of a bit of a longer introduction than I was intending . One thing I wanted to ask you folks listening what should I make next ? Sweet Savory , what would you love to see ? Send me your suggestions and I'll try them out . What would you love to see ? Send me your suggestions and I'll try them out .

The reason I wanted to do popcorn is because it's such a great snack food and why not infuse it ? I love popcorn . I used to eat quite a bit , I have to admit , with my ex . He was called the popcorn master and I think it was really just . He had a really good ratio of butter to salt on his popcorn and that was a snack that we enjoyed quite a bit .

I've been having a craving for popcorn recently , so that's one of the reasons why I wanted to do this one today because I was doing the episodes on ghee and I was like what can I infuse popcorn with ? I was trying to think of things that I could use the infused ghee for . This will work with

any infused fat , pretty much what you need for this particular recipe . One of the reasons why I liked it so much is it is so easy , so so easy . You do not need a popcorn maker to make this . So I used to have an air pop popper , which worked great . I love air popped popcorn . I am not a fan of microwave popcorn .

I've eaten a lot of it in the past but I really don't like it . It's good but it has sort of that chemically taste of whatever it is they put in that bag and it's just not the same . And I also find a lot of the kernels don't pop .

At the bottom of the bags you have a lot of unpopped kernels and they're often wrapped in plastic , so there's actually a lot of waste with microwave popcorn . So for a few different reasons I don't like it , but the big one being is I'm not really . I don't really like the flavor of microwave popcorn nearly as much . Even the ones that have are like flavored .

They just can't really mask that . Whatever the fat is , whatever it is the chemically stuff that they're using in the popcorn to make it work . But the good thing is , you don't need an air popper to make this , and it's actually more fun if you don't . That's the other fun thing .

So for this recipe you're going to need your popcorn kernels , salt , fat and infused fat . That's it , it's pretty easy and a pot .

So if you don't have an air popper which I would suggest you try without , because it's kind of fun to make it without the air popper , and I don't have one anymore anyway , so I made it in a pot you can also apparently do it in a paper bag in the microwave as well , but I was just like I didn't have any paper bags to use , so I was like I'm going

to try it on the stove . I've never done it this way before . So , yes , you're going to need your popcorn kernels , salt , your fat and your uninfused fat . You don't necessarily need to use the infused fat for the actual popping of the corn , and it also makes it easier to dose and dose individually . So that's another reason why I like to do it this way .

So , essentially , what you're going to do to make this popcorn . Are you ready for it ? Because it's fun and it's easy to make this popcorn . Are you ready for it Because it's fun and it's easy ?

And maybe I'm , maybe I'm behind , maybe people are like , yeah , of course you can make popcorn in a pot , but I've just never really tried it before because I always had an air popper . But sometimes I know there's folks out there listening that don't necessarily have big kitchens and I'm kind of in the same spot .

I used to have a much bigger kitchen that had room for all the stuff . When I moved from that house I sold a bunch of things because they just took up space , like a vacuum sealer Kind of wish I still had that . Actually the dehydrator also sometimes wish I still had that .

The air popper not necessarily missing that now that I know I can just do it in a pot on the stove . You know I just don't have the space for that kind of stuff anymore and I know a lot of you also probably don't have the space for like a single use appliance , which is what an air popper is . You're going to need some popcorn kernels .

I used a half cup because I just wanted to try it out . And of course you can get creative too . You can use other toppings besides salt on your popcorn as well . I haven't really experimented with anything like that , but I think I'm going to be experimenting more because I definitely see more popcorn in my future .

So basically , over medium high heat you're going to take three popcorn kernels and your ghee and you're going to add them to your pot and your pot needs a lid and you're going to put the lid on it and you shake the pan a few times and when the popcorn kernels pop , that tells you that there's enough moisture in the kettle for the kernels to be popping .

It's going to be hot enough . So then you're going to add the remaining popcorn and you're going to cover and reduce the heat to medium and shake the pan with little breaks . You don't have to do it constantly like that .

If any of you know that old school Jiffy Pop , I remember doing that a few times on the stove , which is interesting because that's essentially like doing it in a pot .

I felt like with the Jiffy Pop you had to constantly shake the pan and this one , and when I did it this time you don't , but you do shake it pretty regularly and you'll hear it start popping . It actually didn't take that long a few minutes . You just let it and then when the popping starts to slow down , that's when you take it off the heat .

Then I took the popcorn and I put it in a big bowl that I could use to add my toppings , which in this particular case was the infused ghee . I was eating it all myself , as I often do with popcorn and salt . I just use salt . But if you're adding any other toppings , this is when you would want to add them , and then you kind of mix it all up .

I just mix it up with my hand because , let's be honest , I'm going to be the one eating it . Taste it , make sure it's got enough salt and fat on it and voila , you've got popcorn . It was kind of fun to make it . I have to say it was just almost exciting .

Maybe that's really indicative of where my life is at right now , when popping popcorn on the stove . I find exciting . The reason you don't want to necessarily use the infused ghee in the pot is because you are heating it quite a bit .

You need not a lot of oil , but you need enough oil to pop the popcorn in and if you add the ghee afterwards , because of course , it's really nice to add , you know , the butter or whatever fat you're using to a bowl of hot popcorn . It's going to melt nicely .

But then also , if you're adding or if you're serving this to other people you're having a movie night or something like that then you can easily just add the appropriate amount of ghee to get the

potency that you're after . You can then tailor it to whoever's going to be enjoying this popcorn with you . So that's another win as well , because you can have it in a couple of different bowls . And well , I don't need to explain that to you . And of course , if you want to get creative , you can add whatever other seasonings .

And do bear in mind that , yes , I used ghee for this , but you could use butter , you could use olive oil , duck fat . I will probably be trying it with a few different things , because I've been experimenting with some infusions lately which I'm going to be reporting on in the not too distant future .

So one of the great things about using ghee for the cooking fat is because it has that really high smoke point , so your popcorn's not going to get soggy . Now I haven't tried it with these other oils yet .

But that is a really good point , that when you're turning you have to be careful because butter can burn and olive oil has a smoke point , but it's definitely not as high as ghee .

If you go back to that episode that I did on the benefits of using ghee for your edibles , we talk about the high smoke point in that episode and some of the other benefits to using ghee and why it's so great for your edibles . Bear that in mind as well , that it can be handy just to have a little ghee just so you can make your popcorn .

You could also probably infuse it afterwards with a different butter if you wanted . I'm not really sure you would notice like if you used butter instead of the ghee to top it afterwards , because that's what you had on hand infused . I mean , I don't know if that's going to make that much of a difference .

This is a nice little savory treat , so savory snack that you can make your own tailor to your own preferences really easily . I know I'm going to be enjoying a lot more popcorn now that I've made it , although it's interesting because I used a half cup of popcorn and that made a pretty decent sized bowl just for myself .

But I made a lot of popcorn and I forgot how filling popcorn was . I've been enjoying some shows in the evening . I thought what a great snack . But you could probably also experiment with a quarter cup of popcorn , and that might make a pretty decent amount as well . And did I eat it all when I made it ? I sure did .

But that half cup of popcorn , for reference , filled an eight cup measuring cup Cup of popcorn . Obviously you're going to have two large bowls of popcorn , and maybe that quarter cup is better for an individual serving , depending on how hungry you are . So if you have a chance to make this popcorn , I really suggest you try it out .

It's a lot of fun , even if you don't end up infusing it , and it didn't take that long to make Five

minutes , I think . I think that's it for this week , my friends . I do have some exciting episodes coming up for you . I have a couple of interviews that I've done recently that I'm looking forward to releasing soon . So stay tuned for those . And again , let me know what should I make next .

Send me your suggestions and I will do my best to try and accommodate . I'm your host , margaret , and until next week , my friends , stay high .