Popcorn and Cavender's Greek Seasoning - The Staff of Life

I really love popcorn.  I mean, I REALLY love popcorn. I REALLY REALLY love popcorn, and I consider it to be a whole grain and therefore a reasonably healthy snack choice. I also live alone, and like many women who live alone, popcorn is sometimes dinner.  I used to cook it in olive oil on the stove, and dress it with melted butter (the more, the better), salt, pepper and lots of freshly grated parmesan. Then I went through the bagged microwave popcorn phase, which is tasty, but expensive. I've been using a PowerPop in the microwave for many years and I love it - I think I have the original model. It requires a disposable metallic disk be inserted, and I keep using the disk till it gets burnt up. I've also had a couple of forays into electric air poppers, but they throw too much heat for me, and I always go back to the PowerPop in the microwave.

I always cook my popcorn dry in the microwave in the PowerPop. I buy bags of corn kernals, decant to a quart canning jar, and put a coffee scoop inside for easy measuring. I put two scoops (4 Tbs, or 1/4 C) into the PowerPop, set my 1200 watt microwave for 2 minutes 30 seconds on high, and let 'er rip. I usually drizzle a little olive oil over and then season to my taste. I love Adobo seasoning, especially the one with the pepper, and often use that, though I've used any seasoned salt you can think of.  Along with the Badia brand Adobo, I'm currently using Tony Chachere's Seasoning (which is mostly cayenne and not enough other flavors, so I won't be replacing it when it's done), and Cavender's Greek seasoning.  I don't know how authentically Greek Cavender's is - probably not very authetic at all - but it is delicious on my popcorn. I've gone through a small shaker in a month.  Oink.

I just made a dupe of Cavender's. I looked online and found a few recipes for Cavender's, looked them over, put a few together and came up with, not a dupe, but a delicious blend that I may like even better - all from spices and herbs I already had on hand. The recipe is below.

Now, I watched a YouTube video in which a young vegan woman explained how to get salt or other seasonings to stick on dry popcorn. Her secret is to use powdered seasonings. She said salt crystals don't stick, but salt powder does, and she is absolutely correct!!!!  I'm all about saving a few calories here and there, and this works!

So, since I use Cavender's mainly for my popcorn, I made the dupe and put  it through my Vitamix which made short work of pulverizing the ingredients into a powder. It took about 20 to 30 seconds.  I've refilled my Cavender's shaker and I am ready for popcorn!!!

Note: Many of the recipes I saw online added a ton of onion powder, like a tablespoon, but I don't have any onion powder on hand, and if I bought it, I wouldn't use it except for this recipe, so I didn't bother. It's delicious as it is. I may add a touch more salt to the next batch simply because I love salt, but maybe by then I will have tamed my taste for salt a bit.

Denise's Greek Style Seasoning Salt Powder

Makes more than 1/3 cup

1 TBS salt

2 tsp basil

1 TBS oregano

1 TBS garlic granules

2 tsp dill weed

1 tsp marjoram

1 tsp ground black pepper

1 tsp parsley flakes

1 tsp rosemary

1 tsp thyme

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp  ground nutmeg

I added 1 tsp cornstarch to keep it from clumping.