Over our long weekend (2 snow days + Saturday & Sunday), we did a family movie night at home.  The girl and I made homemade chex mix, the way my family used to do before the company started packaging it.  It’s so much better crisp and still warm out of the oven, redolent of the Worcestershire and a hint of garlic, IMO anyway.  The beauty of it being you can make it your own too.

Chex Mix

1 C. Butter
3 tsp. Worcestershire Sauce
1/2 tsp. Garlic Powder
2-4 Drops Hot Pepper Sauce
6 C. small Pretzels or Pretzel Sticks
4 C. Wheat Chex
4 C. Rice or Corn Chex
5 C. Cheerios (or Make a Trifecta of Chex)
3 C. Mixed Nuts

On saucepan mix butter, Worcestershire sauce, garlic powder and pepper sauce. Heat and stir until butter is melted. In large roasting pan mix remaining ingredients. Drizzle with butter mixture and toss to coat. Bake in 300F oven for 45 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes. Spread on foil to cool.

I left out the hot sauce; its not much, but my girl is very sensitive to spice.  I also used only cashews.  Two of us don’t like peanuts and I don’t like almonds, so mixed nuts were nixed.  I also did Corn, Wheat and Rice Chex, and no Cheerios, because I forgot to buy them.  But really, you could add a lot of different things to give it your own spin, bagel chips, goldfish, sesame sticks, what have you.  Just stick to about the same volume of the dry ingredients so the butter mixture can have the same coverage.

I dipped into my food storage and tried the cheddar cheese powder I got from Hoosier Hill Farm to season half the batch.  I didn’t really measure.  I just sprinkled on what looked like a good amount when it first came out of the oven, still a little “damp” and hot, and tossed it well.  I’d probably gotten better results and more even coverage if I’d put it in a little mini sifter (like the one I use for powdered sugar on desserts), but it came out just fine.  The cereal bits that got a little too much cheese powder turned out to be the boy’s favorite bites.

He said it was better than the cheddar cheese flavor packaged Chex mix, so if I can’t figure out how to use the cheese powder otherwise, we could have a LOT of cheddar Chex mix. ;)  I am going to use storage powders and see if I can come up with a decent cheese sauce for veggies this evening.  Wish me luck!