If you can find the "White" popcorn, it has a distinctive flavor that makes up for the lack of chemicals and other nonesuch.

A friend of mine who lives nearby, Cassandra, put the idea in our heads at a spouses’ club-related meeting a couple months ago. We were discussing healthy snacking and she offered up how we can make plain popcorn in the microwave with just a paper lunch bag. She said “a couple tablespoons in a brown bag, fold over the bag twice and pop on high until there’s 1-2 seconds between pops.”

On a recent shopping trip — on which I was also stocking up on whole wheat flour and other baking ingredients — I stopped and stared for a while at the popcorn selections. Mostly the boxed microwave popcorn that contains tocopherols and other goodies.

I remembered Cassandra’s quick ‘n dirty tips for microwaving popcorn and decided to pick up a bag of plain Jiffy Pop popcorn kernels.  2 lbs. of nothing but popcorn!  Nearly 30 servings for $1.99 at our local commissary ($1.99 is the cost of about 6 servings of microwave popcorn.)

We tried it out and it worked beautifully!  Loved not needing any oil to cook the popcorn!  I ended up having to do two batches like that to keep up with my ravenous sons!

Don’t want plain popcorn?  You can melt butter and drizzle it over the popped corn for some classic flavor, or try out one of these fun options.

How about some homemade kettle corn?  Okay, this recipe involves stovetop cooking with oil, but it sure would be nice to have it without having to be at a fair or festival.  We just had some at the Billy Bowlegs Festival Saturday night!