One of my favorite snacks when I was in an office and got the afternoon munchies was a bag of microwave popcorn! It was hot, smelled good, and when I was feeling ornery, annoyed my coworkers! When I decided to go the less processed route popcorn was one of those things that I scratched my head over. I knew of air poppers, but I didn’t want another one use piece of equipment cluttering up my kitchen. Then I found this post: How to Pop Popcorn On the Stove
Great I thought! I will give that a try. And I did try it…twice. I may or may not have followed the directions as closely as I should have, but the end result was that I almost ruined my brand new pot! I was super scared that I wouldn’t be able to clean it enough to use it for regular cooking again. And burned popcorn smell is something that hangs around for a way long time.
So I continued to search…Amazon was my first stop and that’s where I found this little gem: A Whirley Pop!
It was a separate pot, but not an entire separate electronic device and the reviews were good…so with my next amazon gift card I decided to give it a try.
It was wonderful! I loved it! It made making popcorn on the stove top absolutely simple and delicious! Bonus: I didn’t have to clean it after popping! What more could you ask for? I liked it so much I got a bunch for Christmas presents for my family for that year.
So my popcorn routine now goes something like this: Gather the Whirley Pop, a tablespoon of coconut oil (doesn’t leave that greasy feeling or smell on the popcorn), a 1/3 cup to a 1/2 cup of organic popcorn (I buy it in bulk from our local natural store) and put it on medium heat on the stove and turn the little handle until I get popcorn. Then I dump it into a big bowl, melt some earth balance in the still hot pot (due to the fact I don’t have a microwave!) and pour it gently over the popcorn. When I’m not on a no sugar diet I like to make kettle corn with a little bit of sugar and some nutritional yeast sprinkled on top. Nutritional yeast is a great topping without the sugar as is a variety of other herbs/spices.
I would never go back to microwave popcorn now. I have tried the popping in a paper bag and its good in a pinch when you are on vacation, but I love my Whirley Pop and am so glad I discovered it!