Pioneer Woman and Chex Mix

When I was a kid, my Mom would always make Chex Mix at Christmas time. Always from scratch and always the classic recipe that you can find almost anywhere, including on the Chex cereal boxes. It is one of the most intense synaesthetic memories of my youth. The smell of this stuff cooking is almost as good as the taste when it's done. Now, of course, you can make this any time of the year, but it is really best at Christmas. It just is.

And whatever that dreck is that they sell prepackaged in the stores nowadays and call Chex Mix? That ain't it. It takes about $25 groceries to do it right, but it is worth it.

Here is a link to a great version of this recipe, complete with pictures and detailed instructions on a blog called The Pioneer Woman Cooks. This is a sub-blog, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Confessions of a Pioneer Woman blog which is authored by this crazy woman that lives on a ranch out on the Oklahoma prairie somewhere. She is an incredible photographer, a very entertaining writer, and, by all evidences, a fabulous cook. She's got a lot going on and her blog is extremely popular with some posts generating thousands of comments. Yeesh.

I'm going to be making up a big batch of this stuff this weekend to take to church and I will be including PW's secret ingredient in mine, too. Yum.