Heidi, you asked the other day about microwaving popcorn.

I haven't use the popcorn setting on my microwave since I just bought the current one last year and haven't made popcorn in it yet. The last time I made microwave popcorn was a couple of years ago. My old microwave didn't have a popcorn setting. My new microwave is a 700 watt compact model so those cook a little more slowly that the bigger 1100 watt models. But it's a good microwave and I'm happy with it.

All popcorn brands differ in how long it takes. What I do is follow the directions in terms of how many minutes to set the microwave from the directions on the box. If it says 3 to 5 minutes I'll set it for 5 minutes then carefully listen to the popping to determine when to shut it off. To prevent the popcorn from scorching you have to turn off the microwave as soon as you go from hearing lots of kernels popping to just hearing a few random pop, pop, pops. Don't let the microwave run beyond that or the popcorn will start to burn.