It's a Party (Mix)!

 

THANKSGIVING: It's a party (mix)! 

For our family, it will be pizza and a game night to celebrate Thanksgiving this year. Instead of the traditional Thanksgiving meal on Thursday, we'll get together Friday evening for a more casual celebration.

And while we play board games, we can munch on a new snack mix I tried out this week. We have several snack mix favorites that I make during the Christmas holidays. (See the links at the bottom of this post for more tried-and-true recipes from the County Line kitchen.)

I take them to our Moore family Christmas Eve celebration, and I give the mix in plastic gift bags as gifts from my kitchen. 

I saw this mix before Halloween, but I decided to rename it and make it for our game night celebration. It combines salty pretzels and Bugles with Rice Chex in a butter and brown sugar syrup. Once it's baked and cooled, you mix in Reese's Pieces and seasonally-colored M&Ms. I had some fall M&Ms in my freezer, just waiting to be used.

You could use any holiday candy mix-ins and create your own variety. (Christmas is coming!) Or use candies that feature your favorite sports' team colors. The snack mix would be good for a college game day tailgate or for other Thanksgiving weekend football viewing. By the way, Brent and Susan will join us for the K-State vs. KU football game in Manhattan on Saturday. Go 'Cats!

 Sweet & Salty Chex Mix

Adapted from Crayons & Cravings blog

3/4 cup butter

3/4 cup brown sugar

1 tbsp. vanilla

4 cups Rice Chex

2 1/2 cups pretzels

2 1/2 cups Bugles

1 cup seasonal M&Ms

1/2 cup Reece's Pieces

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.

Mix cereal, pretzels and Bugles on prepared baking sheet. Spread into an even layer and set aside. 

In a medium saucepan, combine butter and brown sugar. Bring to a boil, stirring often, over medium-high heat. Cook, stirring constantly, for 1 minute. Remove form heat and stir in vanilla.

Carefully pour the sugar mixture over the Chex mixture on the lined baking sheet. Toss to coat.

Bake for 20 minutes, stirring halfway through. 

Remove form oven and allow the mixture to cool to room temperature. Add M&Ms and Reese's Pieces. Toss to combine. Serve immediately or store in an airtight container until serving. 

 

Note: I doubled the recipe and baked in a roaster, which I sprayed with cooking spray. After it had baked, I dumped out the snack mix onto waxed paper on my kitchen counter to cool before adding the M&Ms and Reece's Pieces.

 

Here are some other snack mix ideas from the County Line Kitchen:

Cinnamon Churro Snack Mix

Toffee Snack Mix 

Pumpkin Pie Snack Mix

Peanut Snack Mix

Chocolate Toffee Snack Mix  

Snack Mix-Up

Lemon Buddies

Fall Harvest Snack Mix

 

Banana Cinnamon Snack Mix