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Crispix mix - it’s a tradition At our house Crispix mix is made on some cold-weather weekends and it’s a required snack food for every Super Bowl game. In the past, my husband and our youngest daughter Jill always made it. But Jill was at work and Bill didn’t have the time yesterday. So I found myself in a rare situation where I had to reach out for advice on how to cook something around here. It turns out that over the years they always double the recipe and more than double the nuts and the awesome “sauce” to mix into the goodies.  This is our version. Ingredients: 14 cups Kellogg’s Crispix cereal, or an entire (17.9 ounce) box 2+ cups mixed nuts 2 cups pretzels  1 stick butter, melted  3/4 teaspoon garlic salt  3/4 teaspoon onion salt  6 teaspoons lemon juice  8 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce  Directions: Combine cereal, nuts and pretzels in a very large bowl. Mix together melted butter, garlic salt, onion salt, lemon juice and Worcestershire sauce. Drizzle sauce over the dry ingredients and stir until evenly coated. Distribute mix on 2 half-sheet pans. Bake at 250 degrees F for about 45 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes and rotating pans. Store in an airtight container.

Crispix mix - it’s a tradition

At our house Crispix mix is made on some cold-weather weekends and it’s a required snack food for every Super Bowl game. In the past, my husband and our youngest daughter Jill always made it. But Jill was at work and Bill didn’t have the time yesterday. So I found myself in a rare situation where I had to reach out for advice on how to cook something around here. It turns out that over the years they always double the recipe and more than double the nuts and the awesome “sauce” to mix into the goodies. 

This is our version.

Ingredients:

  • 14 cups Kellogg’s Crispix cereal, or an entire (17.9 ounce) box
  • 2+ cups mixed nuts
  • 2 cups pretzels 
  • 1 stick butter, melted 
  • 3/4 teaspoon garlic salt 
  • 3/4 teaspoon onion salt 
  • 6 teaspoons lemon juice 
  • 8 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce 

Directions:

Combine cereal, nuts and pretzels in a very large bowl. Mix together melted butter, garlic salt, onion salt, lemon juice and Worcestershire sauce. Drizzle sauce over the dry ingredients and stir until evenly coated. Distribute mix on 2 half-sheet pans.

Bake at 250 degrees F for about 45 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes and rotating pans. Store in an airtight container.

Every 4th of July since our girls were little I’ve been making a flag cake. The raspberries and blueberries from our garden are usually at their peak at this time of year, and it wasn’t any harder than walking out the back door and picking what I needed. However, our old blueberries bushes were never big producers, so last year my husband dug them up and replaced them with a more robust variety. Funny thing, I could have filled an espresso cup with what they yielded this year. (Maybe they’re still babies.) Sans blueberries, what’s a girl to do?

The real truth if you’re even vaguely interested is that I’ve been dying to bake a cheesecake, and finally, a big dinner party with friends on the 4th presented the perfect opportunity. So this year the flag cake was out and my sublime, melt in your mouth cheesecake with fresh raspberry sauce was in. A couple of people wondered what happened to the flag cake, but after they sunk their forks into this cheesecake and tasted it, I heard no complaints about the switch.

I don’t know the origin of this divine recipe, but I’ve had it forever and had to type it from my well-loved and worn 3x5-inch index card. The sugar and egg are mixed together for a full 5 minutes, which must liquefy the sugar to create a texture that is absolutely blissful and creamy. I published my raspberry sauce recipe before, and it’s still a winner. Make cheesecake one day before serving. And by the way, I couldn’t decide which picture to post, so I’m giving you two.  :)

Crust ingredients:

  • 1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 5 tablespoons melted butter

Filling ingredients:

  • 2 eggs
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 2 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 1 teaspoon Grand Marnier, or other fruit liqueur

Topping ingredients:

  • 1 pint sour cream
  • 6 tablespoons sugar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 1 teaspoon Grand Marnier, or other fruit liqueur

Directions:

In mixing bowl, combine graham cracker crumbs, sugar, cinnamon and melted butter. Firmly pat crumb mixture into bottom and sides of a 9-inch glass pie plate, or 8-inch spring form pan. (If you use spring form pan, pat crumbs only 1 1/2-inches up the sides.) Bake at 350 degrees for 5 minutes.

For filling, beat eggs with electric mixer until light. Add sugar and continue beating for 5 more minutes. Add cream cheese, vanilla and liqueur. Beat until filling is smooth. (It’s almost impossible to eliminate all of the little lumps, so don’t worry about them.) Pour filling into prepared crust and bake cheesecake at 375 degrees for 20 minutes. Cool cheesecake for 15 minutes.

Increase oven temperature to 475 degrees. Pour sour cream topping over cheesecake and bake for 5 minutes. Note: if you bake cheesecake in the spring form pan, add all but about 1/3 cup of the topping to the cheesecake.

Cool cake and then chill overnight.

This scarecrow’s part of a tradition

Every couple of years the scarecrow might get a new shirt and the hat changes from time to time. (Check out earlier post, “Somehow we lost the scarecrow’s hat”.) But the overalls, belt, burlap head and earrings are original. She first appeared on our front porch probably 15 years ago. It’s kind of a lot of work to put her together and I think there were a few years in there she didn’t make an appearance, but it’s a tradition that doesn’t look like it’s going away soon.

There are a few good stories associated with the scarecrow – like the time Bill returned from playing racquet ball early one morning, wearing her shirt. I laughed so hard! (He grabbed it in haste from the laundry room, thinking it was probably his.) And there was the year I got enough grief about the dopey expression on her face I decided to give her a new one. I sewed a new head out of burlap and drew a scary, Stephen King-type face on it. It didn’t go over well at all, and I was told it was absolutely NOT okay to change the original. So I rescued the old one and gave her back her silly personality. And years ago we would often find our neighbor’s wonderful cat, Nuisance, sleeping on her lap, which was awfully cute.

So on this cold October morning, I share with you our scarecrow.