Nuts & Bolts

Growing up, my grandmother always seemed to have ice cream pails of homemade nuts & bolts on hand.  We were allowed one small plastic dish (a reused chip dip container) when we visited and I remember often taking a peanut and putting it inside a bugle for the perfect flavour combination. Since my grandmother's passing in the early 90's, my mother has been keeping the tradition alive around Christmas, still tweaking the ingredients a little to figure out the best combination.

So, this suits a perfect beginning to this blog -- a great family recipe that is the epitome of comfort food, at least to me.

Source: Grandma Wannop (family recipe, 3rd generation)

Dry Ingredients

2kg  (500g) Peanuts
1.13kg (283g) Cashews
1.13kg (283g) Mixed Nuts
2 213g bags (106g) Bugles
800g (200g) Pretzels
1 620g box (155g) Shreddies
1 550g box (138g) Cheerios
1 350g box (88g) Crispix
1 1.2kg pkg (2 sleeves, 300g) Cheezies
1 540g box (135g) Corn Bran (optional)

Sauce

1.5 lb margarine (or half butter)
1 Tbsp celery salt
1 Tbsp onion salt
2 Tbsp garlic powder (or more to taste)
1 Tbsp Worcestershire Sauce

Instructions

Melt margarine and butter in a small pot, mix in celery salt, onion salt, garlic powder and Worcestershire sauce.

Preheat oven to 250 degrees.

In a large roaster pan, mix one quarter of each of the cereals, nuts and snack products.  Once mixed, spoon approximately one quarter of the sauce evenly over the mixed cereals and nuts.  Mix thoroughly.  Place roaster pan in oven for 2 hours, mixing every 30-60 minutes.

Keep sauce warm throughout baking process and stir well before each application.

Repeat for the other three quarters of the ingredients.

Yield: ~6 gallons