Holiday Snack Mix

Many of you readers know that when it comes to baking, I’m impaired. Severely. I’d like to blame my baking failures on high altitude, but there are plenty of other food bloggers out there who live at this elevation and bake things like French macarons, for heaven’s sake. Thus, I blame my children. Baking takes focus, people! When you bake, you need to follow directions, which I can’t do anyways, let alone with children clamoring at my knees, begging for licks of the spoon and fighting over who gets to crack the eggs. Cooking with kids is fun, but it’s chaos.

Except during the holiday season. For some reason, baking chaos is welcome at Christmas. That’s the time when, on a snowy afternoon, I’ll crank up the Christmas tunes (much to the annoyance of my husband), call the girls into the kitchen, and we’ll get our bake on. During the holidays, we bake our butts off. We deliver plates of assorted homemade cookies and fudge to friends, neighbors and teachers over the coming weeks, and feel proud of our efforts.

Uh, but this year?  Not so much. We’ve had a leeetle too much weirdness going on.  My oven has been quite lonely this December and there’s been a shocking lack of butter in my refrigerator, so cookie tray, Sayonara!  This year, you’re getting the boot.

This year, I need something decidedly low-maintenance to hand out, and this snack mix fits the bill.  I adapted it from a Bon Appetit recipe–a recipe that sounded perfectly lovely, mind you, but it called for mustard and my family doesn’t “do” mustard, nor does our grocery store carry Terra Stix or un-wasabi-ed peas, so this version was born.

I must warn you that this stuff is a bit addictive if you’re Salty Snack Queen like me. I had trouble keeping my paws out of it. Still, I managed to fill quite a few gift jars and still have a bit left for my greedy self, so don’t feel too guilty if you sneak a bit for personal consumption. Cook’s prerogative, I say.

Holiday Snack Mix

makes about 12 cups

loosely based on a recipe from Bon Appetit

3 cups mini-pretzels (I used square-shaped)

4 cups Bugles (original flavor)

1 cup pumpkin seeds, shelled

2 cups unsalted roasted peanuts

2 cups Asian-flavored snack mix (the kind with wasabi peas in it)

2 cups sesame sticks

6 tablespoons butter

4 garlic cloves, smashed

2 tablespoons Worchestershire sauce

1 teaspoon curry powder

1/2 teaspoon Chinese 5-spice powder

salt and pepper to taste

Heat oven to 250.

Combine first six ingredients together in a gi-normous bowl. Set aside.

Melt the butter in a small saucepan over low heat. Add the smashed garlic cloves and cook over low heat until the butter is infused, about 5 minutes. Discard garlic. Stir in Worchestershire sauce, curry powder, 5-spice powder, and a dash of salt and pepper.

Pour the butter mixture over the dry ingredients, tossing gently but thoroughly to coat.

Line two rimmed baking sheets with non-stick foil. Spread mixture out on both sheets in an even layer. Bake for about an hour, stirring mixture and rotating baking sheets every 25 minutes.

Cool completely and pack into airtight containers.

*Disclaimer: Yesterday, I started feeling so guilty about the UnBaked Christmas that I lured the convalescent Miss M. into the kitchen and between doses of medications, she helped me roll truffles in nuts and cocoa and make a batch of cutout cookies.  Miss D. turned 10 yesterday–double digits!!–and I wanted to honor her in some way, so cookie decorating party it was. I hope it made up for a lack of birthday cake or a birthday post in this space. Thank goodness she’s forgiving, and thought a cookie party was just the thing. Ten years…I can’t believe it.

Tagged as: easy holiday gifts, homemade holiday treats, idiot bakers, moms too lame to make birthday cakes