Cheesy Popcorn

We go through a lot of popcorn in this house. I may have mentioned before my fear of various preservatives and other ingredients found in prepackaged foods. So we air pop our corn instead of doing microwave popcorn. The added bonus is that a bag of kernels is like $1.99 and it lasts us 2 weeks. Microwave popcorn could very well put us into bankruptcy. Because Dana in particular can really put away the popcorn. Her most favorite popcorn is what she calls "Daddy's Popcorn," which is basically cheesy popcorn. It is pretty good, so I will share my version of it with you. Kevin makes it a little bit differently than I do, but since I am the blogkeeper I get to control the recipe. Ha!

I know you are scratching your head right now and wondering what lunatic puts fennel seeds into popcorn. And my answer is, "Not me!" The photo is for illustration purposes. Allow me to explain:

So Kraft used to sell containers of the cheese powder they put into their mac and cheese. Kevin loved that powder and concocted his cheesy popcorn recipe based on it. Unfortunately, Kraft no longer makes that powder. I mean, they do, but to get it you have to buy their mac and cheese and steal the cheesy packet out of it.

I have been on a cheesy powder hunt for months, and then one day I found some! Our grocery store has a repack section, and in that section, hanging out amongst the repacked cinnamon and fennel seeds, was some cheddar cheese powder! So I posted this photo here so you understand what to look for since our cheddar cheese powder is all gone and I couldn't take a photo of THAT repack container. I know fancy words like "repack" because my dad used to manage a health foods warehouse and one of their departments was repack, where they took giant containers of spices and repackaged them into smaller containers. I just like that word today.

King Arthur Flour Company has a Vermont Cheddar powder for sale on their website, but I haven't gotten around to ordering it yet. I keep meaning to but other things come up and divert my attention. Maybe someone wants to try it and let me know if it is any good.

Wow, does that look disgusting! SO I melted 2 tablespoons of butter and then added 2 tablespoons of the cheddar cheese powder. I whisked it together until it was nice and smooth and disgusting looking.

I filled the little measuring device on our air popper with kernels, popped them up, and put them into a paper bag. Then I poured the cheese stuff on top. Doesn't it look tasty? No? Yeah, I didn't think so.

So the bag is about 1/3 full, which is great since you need a lot of extra room for the next step. Which is to close the bag and shake the living daylights out of it to mix it sufficiently. It is a good way to work out aggression. Kevin generally just mixes it with a couple of spoons in a big bowl, but it never gets a good coating. There are always clumps of cheesy butter here and there, and large quantities of popcorn with nothing at all on top. So use the paper bag. It is well worth it.

This is also kind of disgusting. The quantity of grease that seeps through the paper is not particularly appetizing, but I never said this was a healthy recipe. I just said it is one of Dana's favorites.

And there you have it: Cheesy popcorn! Pretty easy and fast.

Wait a second: I KNEW you would notice that we made Oreos and Cheesy Popcorn on the same day. Now you think I feed my children nothing but junk food all day long. Well, you are free to think that if you like, but I actually do get a large amount of produce and other healthy foods into my ladies. And as delicious as they are, Dana only ate half of a homemade Oreo. She did eat about half of this popcorn though.