Christmas Treat!

This was my first (but hopefully not last) foray into COOKING….. an ominous topic to me and to anyone that knows me.  I picked this particular recipe for several reasons- first, the picture looked pretty and very Christmas-y.  Second, there were only five ingredients-

 

Also, I didn’t have to use a pot or a stove- a very big plus to someone who can’t cook.  I was more nervous when I read the directions…. As any fellow non-chef knows, unfamiliar equipment in recipe directions causes lots of anxiety (even more so, sometimes, than unfamiliar ingredients).  Most of the time, this anxiety is caused because we don’t know how to substitute things.  We go by the book, but if the book is too vague or confusing, we are lost and frustrated.

And speaking of being lost and frustrated…. I almost gave up on this whole Idea because of one little ingredient…. Peppermint extract.  I have never used ‘extract’ of anything, but figured it would be in the spice or baking isle.   It was nice things were alphabetized, but after going over the row again and again….. mint extract, orange extract, root beer….. I couldn’t find any of the right extract!  So I left to find the almond bark cause I thought that would be hard to find.  It actually wasn’t, but did you know they have chocolate flavored almond bark??  Weird… Anyway, back to the extract isle.  I was getting mad that I couldn’t find any freaking peppermint extract.   I grabbed some almond extract (why not?) and some vanilla extract (only because I think I’ve heard of that one before) to see if I could try substituting.  Then I remembered that I was doing this only to see if it was possible for someone like me to do it, and figured I shouldn’t give myself the additional  handicap of trying to fake an ingredient.  So I went back to the row and started pushing things out of the way.  Lo and behold, BEHIND the orange extract (duh) was the peppermint extract!  Ah, sweet success. 

So, back to the recipe.  In this recipe she said she crushes stuff in a food processor.  That’s like a fancy blender, right?!   I’m almost positive somewhere in my house is a food processor (my roommate is an amazing cook) but since I wouldn’t know the difference between that and a regular blender, I stuck with old fashioned crushing- I stuck the candy canes in a big baggie and took a rolling pin-like thing and crushed the heck out of the candy.  Actually, it reminded me of crushing pills at the hospital, just on a bigger scale, so it wasn’t too bad.  I do recommend putting something under the bag though…. Those candy canes can be sharpish and little holes in the bag = pretty red and white dust on the counter.  And she is not kidding when she says to use the biggest bowl you have.  It was so hard to mix everything together!  I tried moving the stuff from one bowl to another.... that didn't work very well.  So I dumped it all on the counter (after putting wax paper down, of course) and tried mixing it with my hands (after washing them really really well).  That worked!  If I did this again, I think I would put half the popcorn in the bowl, then cover that with half the other ingredients, then top it with the rest of the popcorn and the rest of the other stuff.  Maybe that would make it easier to mix.

Yum!  Cooling on the wax paper....



My finished product



VS.



The website finished product



See the difference??  I used the amount of Oreo they said to, but hers looks like it has a TON more Oreo.  Or maybe I did a little too well during the crushing stage...

In the end, it cost less than $20 and I spent less than an hour doing everything, including clean up and dishes!

It was really fun and I recommend this pinterest link to anyone!