Halloween Puppy Chow

OK, so I kind of get a kick out of making Halloween treats. Here's another one. I only discovered puppy chow snack mixes in adulthood and wow, are they yummy.

This recipe uses Nutella, but you can easily swap it out for chocolate to avoid nuts. Make adjustments for the mix-ins as needed based on your family's preferences. The original recipe called for a lot of peanut butter candies, but my kids don't like those, so I went with M&Ms.

Mangia! Mangia!
Andrea

Halloween Puppy Chow
Inspired by this recipe from the Kitchn.

5 cups corn Chex cereal
3/4 cup Nutella
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 cups salted popcorn
2 1/2 cups mini pretzels
1 cup M&Ms

Set aside a large baking sheet. Place Chex cereal in a large bowl. Set aside.

In a large ziplock bag, apace powdered sugar, cocoa powder and salt. Set aside.

Put Nutella in a small microwave safe bowl and heat about 30 seconds, until melty. Drizzle over cereal on bowl. Gently stir of coat cereal in Nutella.

Place cereal in ziplock bag and shake until evenly coated. Spread coated cereal on cookie sheet to cool.

Meanwhile, place popcorn, pretzels, M&Ms and any other add-ins into late bowl. Add cereal once cool and mix to combine.

Eat immediately or store in air tight container.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, my dear readers! The husband and I headed west to spend the holidays with his family, and it was filled with all the magic of the season. We celebrated Christmas surrounded by parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. We drove north to ski in in the majestic mountains of British Columbia. We toasted the new year with dear friends.

Oh, and we ate. We ate a lot.

Homemade Swedish cardamom bread slathered with butter and sprinkled with sugar. Perfectly cooked, tender prime rib. Lasagna with two, count 'em, TWO meats. Slow-cooked BBQ beef piled high on crusty buns.

And have you heard of Puppy Chow? Sweet mercy, the Puppy Chow. My brother-in-law requested that my fabulous mother-in-law whip up a batch of Puppy Chow, and I'm so glad he did. (My too-tight pants are less glad, but I'm disregarding their opinion for now.) We began our trip with gallons (literally) of this peanut buttery, chocolatey, sugary treat, and we returned empty-handed and full-stomached.

Today I'm sharing with you the recipe for Puppy Chow. Next week I'll start thinking more about those too-tight pants.

I was too busy eating the Puppy Chow to snap a photo, so the image above is courtesy of chex.com. 

Puppy Chow (a.k.a. Muddy Buddies)
Recipe from: Chex

9 cups Rice Chex cereal
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
1.5 cups (or more) powdered sugar

Place Rice Chex into a very large bowl and set aside.

Meanwhile, melt together chocolate chips, peanut butter, and butter. (You can do this in a saucepan on the stove over medium-low heat or in the microwave. Just microwave for 30 seconds on high and stir. Repeat until everything is melted.) Stir in vanilla.

Pour chocolate mixture over Rice Chex and stir gently until the cereal is evenly coated. Transfer to a very large (2-gallon) Ziploc bag. Add 1.5 cups powdered sugar to bag and seal it tightly. Shake, shake, shake the bag until cereal is evenly coated with powdered sugar. If the Puppy Chow is sticking together too much, or if it doesn't look sugary enough, add a bit more powdered sugar and shake it up again.

Spread on waxed paper to cool. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator.