Kitchen Sink Caramel Corn

Note: Feel free to use just about anything you want in here: add in some mini peanut-butter crackers, use cashews or almonds instead of peanuts, perhaps throw in some dried fruit. Just make sure your extra ingredients approximately equal 5 cups and stay away from chocolate—it will melt and become a big, huge mess.

Spray a brown paper bag with cooking spray. Add popped popcorn, pretzels, cheese crackers and peanuts.

Measure out baking soda; set aside.

Combine butter or margarine, sugar, corn syrup and salt in a saucepan; bring to a hard boil, stirring constantly. Boil for 2 minutes (still stirring), then remove from heat and immediately stir in baking soda.

Pour mixture over popcorn and stir to combine. Once everything is fairly evenly coated with caramel mixture, fold the top of the bag down and shake. Put bag in the microwave and cook on high for 1 minute (see note below). Take the bag out and shake again (bag will be hot!). Return to the microwave and cook for 1 minute more. Take out, put in a bowl and eat!

Caramel corn will harden and start to stick together as it cools, so you may want to stir it to break it apart periodically. This is easiest to do with the handle of a wooden spoon.

Note: If you have a high-powered microwave, you may want to lower it one or two levels, or slightly adjust the microwave time, to keep the sugar in the caramel from burning.