May 3, 2013

Welcome to May!  We tried two new dinner recipes this week, but neither was voted a keeper.  Hmmm...what to do.  Since I don't have any recipes to share, I will tell you all about one of our favorite snacks, popcorn.  Popcorn, you say, what is so exciting and new about that?  I love popcorn.  When I graduated from high school Mrs. C gave me an air popper to bring to college; I had that popper until about 6 months ago.  It didn't break, but it finally was retired because I replaced the way to make popcorn.  On Pinterest I had seen a way to make popcorn using kernels, a brown paper bag and the microwave.  It looked too good to be true, but why not try it?  It worked!!!!  No oils, no additives, just the popcorn in a folded lunch bag in the microwave.  How fantastic!

Also, remember that grapefruit spoon sitting in your silverware drawer?  Have you been using it to hollow out your zucchini boats?  Scrape out the seeds from a jalapeno pepper?  Fish out small pieces of shell that accidentally got in the bowl with the egg?  Here comes another idea for that super serrated spoon - use it to hull your strawberries!  We probably should stop calling it a grapefruit spoon since that is only a small part of its duties in the kitchen.  :)

Happy cooking!

New "Recipe"
Popcorn

Popcorn

Ingredients
* 1/4 cup popcorn
* 1 brown paper lunch bag

Directions
1. Pour the popcorn into the lunch bag.  Fold over the top two times.
2. Place in the microwave and set the timer for 2 minutes and 30 seconds.
3. Listen to the popcorn pop and stop cooking when you hear the popping slow down.  You don't want to burn your popcorn!
4. Pour the popped popcorn into a bowl and season as you like (melted butter, salt, Parmesan cheese, garlic salt, the sky's the limit!). Enjoy!

Notes
I saw this idea on Pinterest, and was extremely skeptical.  It looked way too easy, and had to be too good to be true.  I tried it, and a-m-a-z-i-n-g!!!!  It worked!!!  No oils, so additives, and you can even "recycle" the un-popped kernals in the next batch!!!  We used to have an air popper, but once I discovered this, it is so much easier so we freecycled our popper!!!