Popcorn

Popcorn. I've always been a big fan of popcorn. I remember the delicious smell of freshly popped  corn as I entered Sears on Jefferson Ave. as a young teen.  Movies were more about the buttery goodness of a big bag of popcorn than the movie itself.  Back in the 70's before owning a microwave, I remember the magic of microwave popcorn from Snappy Jack around the corner.  For the last twenty-five years popcorn has become my go to snack. I enjoyed the convenience of microwave popcorn for years until I read that some of the chemicals in the packaging could be unhealthy.  In my attempt to eat more real foods, I went back to the old way of popping corn; on the stove in oil. However, now I'm reading that canola and vegetable oils are really not that healthy either. Yesterday I tried a new way to pop popcorn in the microwave and it actually was quite good. I had read about it on the 100 Days of Real Food website, and basically all you do is put 1/4 cup popcorn kernels into a small brown paper lunch sack and pop it for around 3 minutes and 15 seconds. Make sure to listen carefully as the popping winds down. Voila!  You end up with perfectly popped corn. Next I put it in a bowl and spritzed it with some olive oil and sprinkled Parmesan cheese on top. Now granted it was not quite as oily as stove popped, but boy was the cleanup easy! With a package of 50 lunch sacks at $1.00 and popcorn at $1.88 this really ends up being pretty economical. You might want to give it a try.