For the Love of Popcorn

I love popcorn. It reminds me of being a kid. When we would rent VHS movies my Dad would pull out the 80’s hot air popper and make my brother and I popcorn in the designated yellow, plastic popcorn bowl.  We used to laugh hysterically when the odd kernel would pop and fly out of the machine. Is there anything better than popcorn raining down on you?

Then one day it all changed, we got a microwave and soon after came microwave popcorn. So convenient and less mess. It never tasted as good though.

After I left home I continued to make microwave popcorn as a snack on a pretty regular basis, I don’t own an air popper. I had heard rumblings about popcorn made in a pot on the stove. I had a delicious brush with it as one of my (many) university roommates used this old school method…..it was so good and tasted real. Still, seemed like a lot of work.

I was at the grocery store the other day and there staring at me was a bag of popcorn kernels. Why not give it a try?

I put a large pot with a tight lid on medium heat for about 2 minutes, I then added 1/3 of a cup of kernels and 1 tsp olive oil and gave it a quick stir.  Covered it and cooked for 2-3 minutes while shaking the pot often. Once the popping started I was really giving it a good shake (I wonder if this counts as exercise?), I continued to do this until the popping sound had almost finished. I removed from heat and let it stand covered for a bit to allow the last few kernels to pop. Added a few cracks of sea salt then I e-n-j-o-y-e-d! Amazing taste and texture. Only down fall was I had to share with my husband.

This is also great from a nutritional standpoint. Popcorn is a low calorie snack. Olive oil is a healthy fat (unsaturated) and you can control the amount of both the oil and the salt. No worrying about trans fats and other strange, cancer causing additives.

There was the dirty pot, but this could solve that...I will keep you posted….