Michele's Totally Awesome Gourmet Popcorn!

Boy was I excited to arrive home to this box...

Michele's Totally Awesome Gourmet Popcorn began when the wonderful Michele decided to start selling her beloved whoopie pies...yes...whoopie pies. She began to research how to run such a business. During this time she was also sharing some amazing white chocolate popcorn, and enough people raved about it and told her that she should sell it that...well..she did! She decided to set aside the whoopie pie idea and focus on gourmet popcorn. A family run business, Michele's is run by Michele, her husband, and her 3 children in New Hampshire. All of the flavors are hand-crafted in small batches with quality ingredients and always fresh! You can order their savory and sweet popcorn varieties online, in select stores, and they've recently opened their own store-front in New Hampshire! They've even been selected for the official SWAG bags of the Daytime and Sports Emmy's of 2010, and the 2012 Kid's Choice Awards!

Brown Sugar Cinnamon Oat Scones

Scones--they evoke imagery of having an English tea on floral patterned, Victorian, furniture and talking about the "Queen Mum". (Who...I...suppose...is this Queen's mom? Yes?).

In my never-ending quest to make more new and delicious breakfast foods (because I have a hard time eating normal, quick, breakfasts for some reason), I decided it was time for scones to make an appearance. And these looked like such a yummy way to introduce myself to them! Brown sugar-yum. Cinnamon-yum. Oats-I'm a fan. Whole wheat-woo hoo! Admittedly, I had a smidgen of a hard time with these. The dough was so wet I wasn't really able to separate/move them to the baking sheets without causing most of the scones to become horribly misshapen. I'm unsure how to solve this issue/what I did wrong. Perhaps I should have put more flour in. However, since this was my first foray into scones, I thought perhaps they were supposed to be that way? But if they are...how in heaven's name can you get them to the baking sheet/separate them from each other after cutting? All my scone making friends-I'd love any feed-back!

Anyway, technical issues aside-these tasted phenomenal! Satisfying, hearty from the wheat and oats, and with just the right amount of sweetness. Definitely one of my favorite things I've made for breakfast...honestly I even ate some as snacks because I had such a hard time keeping myself away from these. They really are so delicious! I suggest you give these a try, they make morning times happy :).

Something Saturdays (7/28/12)

Hello again!

--First in news: The winner of the SlimKicker Contest/Crock-Pot Giveaway has been announced: Amy Marantino! Please click here to find out how to claim your prize, Amy! Congrats!

Now, let's talk about my new baking friend, my buddy: The Chip Clip Cookie Scoop.

I first read about these on Averie Cooks and knew I had to get to Bed Bath and Beyond and buy myself some, ASAP. These little beauties are a Godsend. They're super cheap (coming in 2 sizes, the smaller for 3.99 and the larger for 4.99...I bought the larger one...I like big cookies), and work better than I could have imagined! They're very simple: you just scoop the dough, press the big button on the back of the scoop, and the dough easily releases! And you're left with gorgeous, uniform cookies! I'm in love. I've made 1 batch of cookies with the new scoop and I can already tell they are superior in appearance and baked more evenly than any cookies I've made in the past. This was a very, very, very good buy! Yay!