SWEET SEPTEMBER
Chocolate Chip Cookies are ALWAYS a good idea + Fall Popcorn with Pizazz
It’s time to sweeten up your September! It’s an interesting month, September… not quite Summer, but not quite Fall either… truly a seasonally transitional month. Know what’s always in season? Cookies. Especially ones that have been perfected over ten years of R&D! Plus, we are tasting the newest popcorn flavors to hit the market (spoiler alert: they’re Fall-themed and delicious!).
10-YEAR CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES, PLUS ONE
AU: Now that the weather is starting to give us whispers of Fall (in Los Angeles we finally dropped to a chilly 63ºF! Don’t worry—we’re going to hit the 90s again this week), it’s time to revisit an oldie but a goodie…
Last fall, Elizabeth had some work out West, so you she stayed with us for a night, and that’s when she tasted my (now ‘famous’) chocolate chip cookies. This cookie recipe has been tweaked over the past 10 years of mine and Josh’s marriage, so they’re as sentimental as they are sweet (and salty!).
EK: The moment that I took that first bite of your cookie is etched in my memory. The cookie is so special and fires on every cylinder—sweet, bitter, salty, buttery, crispy and chewy! I mean I like any chocolate chip cookie, but if I am honest, most of them are too soft, or too hard and often bland. This cookie explodes with flavor—and has layers of flavor—but it is restrained too. Like Goldilocks, I’ve tasted them all and this is the definition of a perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie!
AU: STOP IT I’M BLUSHING!! Well, since Josh and I just celebrated 11 years of marriage (hence the aforementioned “plus one”), we thought it’d be a good time to remind you that it’s always a good idea to have a freezer bag full of chocolate chip cookie dough balls tucked away to satisfy on-demand cookie cravings!
You can read Elizabeth’s article on the 10-Year Chocolate Chip Cookies for Forbes here!
And if you just want to take a trip down memory lane—or perhaps you’d like to DUNK AND DIP—you can see me make them on GMA here.
Sidenote: We started writing What’s 4 Dinner? before Substack even had the ability to create PDFs, so I never had a printable/downloadable version of the 10-Year Chocolate Cookie recipe… until now!
NOT YOUR AVERAGE POPCORN
EK: I discovered Poppy Handcrafted Popcorn in 2019 when I flew out of the Asheville, NC, airport after a stop for my Steak & Cake book tour. I was looking for a snack that would double as lunch. If you’ve ever flown out of that airport, you know that the snack bar/airport shop is more like a gift store than your average airport offerings. I saw the colorful bag of popcorn and decided to try it. And, I wasn’t disappointed. It was elevated popcorn and I thoroughly enjoyed it while I waited for my plane to take off.
Fast-forward to 2021 and Poppy came out with a limited edition BBQ Popcorn line celebrating the different regional styles of barbecue including the tangy Carolina vinegar-based style. I loved that popcorn so much that I wrote about it and became a fan for life!
This fall, the Asheville, NC, based popcorn company has done it again with their fall favorites. The flavors of Caramel Apple, Cinnamon Bourbon Pecan, Pumpkin Spice and Southern Pecan Pie are captured and tossed with big soft fluffy kernels of popcorn. (These flavors will be sold on their website through 11/26/22.)
AU: Okay time for some truth… when you told me what flavors we were going to be tasting, I was verrrrrrrry skeptical. I’m not usually a fan of pumpkin spice foods that aren’t pumpkin pie.
EK: Same, but I wanted to keep an open-mind! This called for a coast-to-coast tasting and so Anthony, Josh and I opened our bags and systematically tasted each one. We all had our pre-conceived notions of which would be our favorite before we even opened the bags—and I, for one, was proven wrong!
AU: Me too! What struck me first was that each flavor was perfectly balanced. Not too sweet, not too heavy on the cinnamon or nutmeg. It’s almost like Poppy said “let’s create an almost savory version of these Fall flavors.”
EK: Here’s the line-up:
Caramel Apple
EK: The website says, “take a trip to the apple orchard." I was thinking state fair caramel apples…and when you open the bag, you definitely smell apples. Josh was transported to the orchard and “apple picking” with a “nice autumnal flavor.”
We all tasted the apple pie spice and thus thought of apple pie more than a caramel apple.
AU: Yes, I was expecting more of that cloying, sour apple candy flavor, but was pleasantly surprised that it was more of a nuanced apple pie vibe. Or like if you made some simple baked apples in the oven. A strong start…
Cinnamon Bourbon Pecan
EK: The website says, “because Bourbon and pecans are as Southern as it gets.” Anyone who knows me knows I love Bourbon, and we were impressed that Poppy uses the local Troy & Sons Cinnamon Honey Whiskey to make the popcorn.
I actually met the founder, Troy Ball when she was first getting started. She has a great story which you can read here. I love that she learned the craft of distilling from the expert moonshiners in Western North Carolina!
The popcorn is made with the whiskey and fresh pecans and tastes of cinnamon, butter and a bit of molasses. It is not cloyingly sweet and Anthony proclaimed it “delicious—best sweet popcorn…”
Pumpkin Spice
EK: We were all ready to pounce on this nod to the PSL! One of us—we won’t reveal who—actually said, “God help us—pumpkin spice!” during the tasting…
We are all fans of pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin ravioli, etc., but not huge fans of pumpkin spice in everything! However, this popcorn really surprised us! This is NOT your BASIC PSL!!
AU: I was actually shocked at how good this was. Honestly, it was very close to being my favorite of the bunch. It’s a sophisticated and restrained pumpkin spice! And the crunch you get from the little bits of pepitas/pumpkin seeds kept me going back for more.
EK: The website says, “your favorite latte, in snack form.” I think that copy is selling the popcorn short! Josh captured it perfectly with “pumpkin spice Cracker Jacks.” If that doesn’t make you want to buy it, we don’t know what will.
The flavor is heavy on cinnamon and the toasted pumpkin seeds, a.k.a. pepitas elevate the popcorn making it more sophisticated. It is well-balanced, not too sweet and each bite reinforces the high-quality pumpkin spice surprise that will make lovers out of [PSL] haters.
Southern Pecan Pie
EK: We love that the website claims that the popcorn is “a close second to your Grandma’s pecan pie.”
When you open the bag, it smells like butterscotch and vanilla. Once you taste it, “it’s a little sweet and a little salty.” The savoriness balances the sweet maple and brown sugar and you get a nice coconut bite at the end.
It is not as sweet as you expect it to be and thus, you can keep nibbling. This was Elizabeth’s top choice for pairing with a glass of Bourbon!
AU: This reminded me of a high-end butterscotch kettle corn with big toothsome bites of pecans flecked throughout. I think we were unanimous in our “research.”
EK: Important to note that they were all delicious! If we had only tasted one flavor, we would have loved it, but when you have 4 flavors side-by-side, it’s difficult not to rank them…
AU: Drumroll, please…
EK: It was fairly unanimous! Southern Pecan Pie won our top spot by the tiniest of margins, with Cinnamon Bourbon Pecan being a very close second. We were all in agreement that Pumpkin Spice and Caramel Apple were 3rd and 4th.
Southern Pecan Pie
Cinnamon Bourbon pecan
Pumpkin Spice
Caramel Apple
If you’d like to snag your own box of Poppy Handcrafted Popcorn flavors, you can purchase them directly here. We think they’d make amazing gifts as we head into the holiday season!
That’s it for this week! As always, if you make our recipes, tag us on the ‘gram (@kitchensitch & @elizabethkarmel), and use the hashtag #whats4dinner. Happy cooking!!