Comments on: Planet-Saving, Money-Saving Homemade Popcorn

By: becky

becky — Fri, 15 May 2009 17:23:23 +0000

i know this is an old post, but i have to add my seasoning suggestions! we add braggs or soy sauce to the butter,olive oil or flax seed oil. and then when we are feeling fancy we add a couple of drops of truffle oil (not cheap, i know, but if you splurge on food items every once in a while, this is a fun one that goes a really long way). we also add spike or if we have been to eugene lately to pick it up we add toby’s tofu seasoning (from the bulk aisle at sundance). so good!

By: rebecca

rebecca — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 01:42:12 +0000

Kathleen W–I use a Whirly Pop, too! The best part is that I got it for $1.50 after I bargained the guy down from $2.00. I happened upon it at a yard sale when I was looking for a dedicated popcorn pan. It works very well and I’ve had it for years now, so I say I got my money’s worth.

Joy, that’s too bad about the plastic bags. I was hoping Eugene had found a way to recycle them! If you bring your own bag to the store and fill it with popcorn from the bulk bins, you could still achieve a zero-waste snack! (I have to admit that I don’t do this because the bulk popcorn is about $.40/lb. more expensive than the packaged kind.)

By: Joy

Joy — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 22:29:04 +0000

Thanks so much everyone for your wonderful popcorn topping ideas! I feel like we’re going to be elbow deep in popcorn all week as we try out each delectable suggestion!

Rebecca:
I’m sad to say that you were right about recycling food bags. We had no idea that we were possibly clogging the machines all this time by tossing the food bags into the recycling bin! The site below has clear directions about which bags can and can not be recycled.

http://www.plasticbagrecycling.org/01.0/

By: Sara

Sara — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 20:42:40 +0000

Ooo, I’m glad for this tutorial. I admit I’ve never made stove top popcorn but I’ve been wanting to start this. I grew up eating popcorn every night b/c my dad loved it but he had an air popper.

By: Kathleen W.

Kathleen W. — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 19:15:52 +0000

I have fond memories of my parents making us a big pot of popcorn on the stove (there were five kids in our family, so it had to be a big pot). Since I don’t make microwave popcorn because it tastes funny to me, I’ve used my Whirly Pop to do it, which is just like a cooking pot but it has a stirrer on the bottom. It’s nice being able to flavor it however you’d like. And I am always shocked at how far a bag or jar or popcorn kernels can go!

By: Condo Blues

Condo Blues — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 16:11:37 +0000

I’ve always made popcorn on the stove (or popcorn maker) because I was a starving college student who coudn’t afford a microwave popcorn habit! And after trying microwave popcorn, I didn’t like the greasy taste of it compared to stove top popcorn.

After experiencing ‘herb garden overload’ the last couple of summers, I’ve been trying a lot of herbs either in the cooking oil or sprinkled on the popcorn after the fact. My current favorates are basil/oregano (pizza popcorn!), chili powder, and cilantro (although the cilantro does best when heated in the popping oil first.)

By: Rita

Rita — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 15:42:11 +0000

Gotta agree with you on the popcorn. Buying microwave popcorn is such a waste. I don’t like to use the microwave a whole lot because I worry about the radiation issue.

By: Cathy

Cathy — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 13:25:56 +0000

How funny–I wrote this week about using a microwave instead of a stove for making scrambled eggs! I totally agree with you though–making popcorn on a stove is much better than the microwave popcorn b/c there is a lot less waste, and it’s healthier. We make popcorn on the stove a lot at home.

There are just so many factors to making “green” decisions!

By: April

April — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 04:15:53 +0000

Too funny! I just made a big bowl of popcorn for myself (something I haven’t done in ages) right before I came on here to catch up on blogs!

The two previous posters have already mentioned 2 of my favorite seasonings. One being throwing in a handful of sugar and a sprinkle of salt in with the oil to make kettle corn (shake a LOT with this method as it tends to burn easily).

The bowl I had tonight had sea salt and nutritional yeast. Yum, yum!

Another way I like it is with cinnamon and sugar (a favorite of the kids!)

By: rebecca

rebecca — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 03:24:58 +0000

We like to use nutritional yeast flakes. (Is this the same as brewer’s yeast?) For some reason I got it in my head to try it a couple months ago, and I will never go back to plain popcorn again!

Joy, you have mentioned in a few posts that you recycle plastic bags food comes in. Here in Portland we can drop bags off at grocery stores to be recycled–but just plastic shopping bags, not plastic food bags. How do you recycle your plastic bags in Eugene? I’d always heard warnings to never throw them in with your other recyclables as one bag could get jammed in the machines and ruin everything!