Making your own popcorn

First off, today is Margaret's Birthday! so get on over to her place and wish her a good one!

A few days ago I was browsing around Denise's blog and found her and a friend discussing the bad health of factory workers that make microwave popcorn. They started talking "boycott" and I got nervous, being a union man, I can't, will not, cross a picket line and generally honor most boycotts for workers...but damn, I got to have me some popcorn, it's a dieters panacea! What to do?

About a year ago I happened to be watching Good Eats, a Food TV show staring Alton Brown. I love this show because you learn so much about the science, history and yes recipes of great foods. This particular show was about popcorn and how to make it in the microwave, but I did not write it down and could not find it on-line, so I experimented tonight. Here is what I found out, it's simple.

Just take 2-3 tablespoons of whole grain popping corn and put them into a paper lunch bag. Fold over the top with a couple of tight folds and put it in the micro on your popcorn setting, or about 3 minutes. Watch and listen till it gets to 2-3 seconds in-between pops. Take it out, open up carefully.

Now you can eat it plain right out of the bag or put some flavored salt (like garlic), oils or cheese (like Parmesan) on them and shake. Being that I am trying to lose fat, I just pour it into a bowl, spray on a little "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter", a little popcorn salt (finer than regular) and I am ready to go, about 100 calories and t6 grams of fiber.

Whatever you do, don't put oil in the bag, or shredded cheese, or butter in the bag before popping! I did not have much luck with that and instead made some congealed blobs of yeech.

You know what this is really great for...kids. My son loves to feed the neighborhood when he has the gang over, using store bought microwave popcorn can be expensive. One package of plain kernel popcorn is only around $3 and can make over 20 "lunch bag" servings above. In general that is a about the same as 2-3 boxes of microwave popcorn and with no partially hydrogenated oil, no MSG, no malodextrin, no yellow #5 & 6 and no propyl gallate (whatever the hell that is).

OK, enough of my Martha Stewart crap! Have a great weekend, watch some movies and pop some corn!

Comments

[Margaret]

Thanks for your link, Chuck and I LOVE microwave popcorn. (but loaded with Parmesan cheese--I'm a bad girl!) I am also a union girl-WEA, which is part of the NEA.

[FB]

You know, I thought that Alton Brown said to put staples in it! I did not need to, just folded it over two times. It has to be the easiest thing I ever "cooked", definitely a must for a home ec course!

[Denise]

I asked some folks trying to lose weight about this and got quite a few replies. Several have those special for microwave poppers and say that those work well so you don't even need the paper bag. Some are wondering about the directions they found that suggest stapling the bag - should you really put staples in the microwave?

By the way, FB, there's little chance that TW (who suggested the boycott) will actually follow through. She has ulcerative colitis and can't eat the stuff anyway and she adores the 15 year old popcorn addict in our home and gives her whatever she wants lol. She just wanted to give me a hard time on my blog. ;-)

Thanks for the suggestion, it's been a lot of fun reading about this and hearing others talk about their experiences. AND I am going to make my Michelle learn how to do this as part of "home ec" during our homeschool year this year.