Nuts and Bolts
Ingredients
See Note in Comments section.
1 lb. butter (not margarine)
5 1/2 TBS. Worcestershire sauce
4 tsp. garlic powder
4 tsp. Lawrey's Seasoning Salt
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper or Tabasco Sauce (optional)
6 oz. Cheerios (about 6 cups)
A total of 9 oz. (or 9 cups) of your favorite "chex" cereals**. I use:
4 oz. Crispix® (about 4 cups)
2 oz. Corn Chex® (about 2 cups)
2 oz. Rice Chex® (about 2 cups)
1 oz. Wheat Chex® (about 1 cup)
10 oz. pretzel sticks. Thin sticks work best. If you use regular sticks, use maybe 9 ounces and break them in half.
A total of 24 oz. (about 5 cups) of nuts††. I use:
9 oz. (about 2 cups) mixed nuts without peanuts. ***(Peanuts have a huge impact on flavor.)
5 oz. (about 1 cup) cashews
5 oz. (about 1 cup) walnut halves & pieces
5 oz. (about 1 cup) almonds
** Gussie's original recipe used only Rice Chex®, although I think at some point she may have added Corn Chex® and Wheat Chex®. Crispix® had not been invented when she was alive. Bottom line is you can use whatever combination of "chex" cereals you like, although I would go light on the Wheat Chex®.
†† This might be too much nuts for some people, so you might want to drop down to maybe 20 oz. of nuts and increase your cereals by 4 oz.
*** If the mixed nuts you use have big, whole macadamia nuts you might want to cut them in half or in thirds.
Directions
Preheat oven to 300°.
In a large roasting pan, heat nuts for about 15 minutes. If you are using any raw, unroasted nuts like almonds or walnuts, put them in for 5 - 10 minutes before adding the other roasted nuts.
While the nuts are heating, melt butter in microwave and add the Worcestershire, garlic and seasoning salt (and cayenne pepper or Tabasco if you use it).
Stir well.
After nuts are finished heating, reduce oven to 225°. Give it time to cool off.
Add the rest of the dry ingredients to the nuts and mix well,
Stir the liquid again, and stir well before each pour.
To add the butter mixture, drizzle about 1/8 of the liquid over the dry ingredients and mix well!
Stir well before each pour! Can't emphasize this enough!
Repeat until you have used all the butter mixture.
Mix very thoroughly so that everything is well mixed.
Put it in the oven at 225° for about 45 minutes.
Stir well about every 15 minutes.
At 45 minutes drop oven temp to 200, and continue for another 45 minutes
Again, stir well every 15 minutes.
After the 90 minutes is up, turn off the oven and leave the mixture in the oven overnight to allow it to fully finish as the oven cools.
Don't be in a rush!
Most important:
- heat the nuts before adding everything else.
- stir the ingredients well the first time and then every 15 minutes.
- wait until the butter mixture is completely gone - the finished ingredients should not be shiny.
Once cooled, the party mix should be stored in an airtight container.
We keep ours in cookie tins lined with plastic wrap.
I have also stored it in plastic bags inside coffee cans for as long as four months.
Makes not enough