What I love about kitchen witchcraft is that there is meaning in everything. Every ingredient has a power and every tool a magical associations. According to my book, apples correspond with wise choices and insight, vanilla with love and awareness, and using a microwave will aid in legal expedition. Because of this, if you so choose, every single thing you make can have a hundred powers.
I’ve been in a rut. I haven’t been feeling particularly creative, I’ve been anxious, and I keep forgetting to do things that make me happy. I figured there had to be something in A Kitchen Witch’s Cookbook for energy, or something with a tinge of spring renewal. Of course, it does have such a recipe. It’s for Chex mix.
I don’t think they can legally say Chex mix, so it’s for “Super-Charged Snack Mix.” Noting that pretzels have been used in festivals to honor the sun, and corn is symbolic of plenty and vitality. The book suggests that the snack mix would be a great addition to most spring festivals, and is associated with “energy, protection, drastic change, stamina, devotion, prophecy.” It sounded like exactly what I needed
Mystic Chex Mix
Yields just over three cups
1 cup unsalted, unbuttered popcorn
1 cup Chex cereal (I used corn, for even more plenty and vitality)
½ cup peanuts
½ cup pretzel sticks
½ cup small cheese crackers (I used Goldfish, because they’re great and also fish are associated with long life and miracles?)
3 tbsp butter
¼ tsp salt
½ tsp garlic powder
¼ tsp onion powder
¼ tsp Worcestershire sauce
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. In a large bowl, mix together the popcorn, Chex, peanuts, pretzels and cheese crackers. For a long time, I just thought Chex mix was the cereal mixed with other things and I didn’t get why it qualified as a recipe. It still barely does but putting it in the oven counts for something.
Melt together the butter and seasonings and drizzle into the Chex mix. Toss to combine, then spread the mixture onto a cookie sheet (magically associated with pleasure!) and bake for about 15 minutes.
It was…Chex mix! It was as good of a mix as you’ll find anywhere. As I made it, it started raining, which is possibly my biggest demotivator. But I ate some and drank some seltzer and I felt okay. Not drastically energized, not any more inspired, but for a second slightly less worried about it all. Though maybe I was just hungry.
I am allergic to at least one third of the ingredients on this list, so I will officially be attributing my emotional stagnation and complete inability to better myself to the fact that I cannot make this magical Chex mix. Thanks for the explanation; this must be it.
But do they have the recipe with the chocolate powder? Because personally, chocolate is my magical motivator.
Please do a series about this book so that we may all join you on your witchy adventures!
I don’t know how I feel about popcorn insinuating itself into Chex Mix! But who am I kidding, all chex is just an ingredient in puppy chow if you ask me.
I don’t think my freshman year roommate ever forgave me for eating an entire tub of puppy chow that she got in a care package from home. But in my defense, she didn’t seem interested in it, and no one ever sent ME care packages, and I had never eaten puppy chow before and was not aware that such magic exists.
Wherever you are, Maren: sorry about the puppy chow! I’ll make you a replacement batch if you tell me where to send it!
As I’ve noted in the past, cooking rarely makes me feel particularly witchy, but it does usually make me feel capable and smart, which perhaps is a kind of spellcraft. During a recent period of underemployment and intellectual stagnation, I started writing journal entries about what I cooked and how I felt about it. I’ve tried to keep the practice up when I can, now that I’m a bit busier; I found that it feels really good not only to have a record of good self-care but to make a nice coherent narrative out of a day that might otherwise feel like a wash.
Make this magical Chex mix bring you and yours great inspiration, or at least satisfaction!
Journalling cooking sounds like a great idea. I usually love cooking, but for some reason it’s not been bringing me a lot of joy recently. I’ve been trying new things etc but that doesn’t seem to be helping. Maybe a bit of journalling will – thanks!
It’s worth a try! A good example is that one day I had kind of a crappy day at my former job and went home to cook a dinner I wasn’t excited about, but writing about both was a way for me to articulate what was and was not working in my life. (It’s the “green bean curry” post of these posts, if you were curious.)
Roxane Gay does cooking journal-type entries on Tumblr occasionally and they’re always wonderful. Here’s her most recent one http://roxanegay.tumblr.com/post/132647385910/a-s…
I have always considered the most vitality to be contained in the tiny bagel chips, which are sadly missing from this recipe.
Cosigned. The fact that mini-melba toasts can taste so good is, itself, sorcery.
Oh my god yes. I could mow down so many of those.
You can have all of mine. They’re known in my household (to me and the cat, that is) as “grease-soaked wafers.”
there’s a (non-chex) brand that makes these, by themselves, in a bag. The little brown rye chips. No more fighting with my husband over our shared habit of mining these out of a regular bag of chex mix!
Cooking is usually such an anxiety reliever for me, but recently, being in the kitchen has been causing me anxiety– I have roommates and they’ve been getting Real Bad about leaving dishes in the sink, even though we have a dishwasher. There’s a pot that’s been sitting there a week. I feel like it’s too late for me to say anything, but every time I walk into the kitchen and that damn pot is still there, my heart rate rises. (I’ll probably end up just cleaning it myself.) How do you kitchen witch with roommates? How do you dig out a little calming and sacred space in a 50 sqft kitchen?
You have a dishwasher and they still leave dishes in the sink? I don’t get it–dishwashers are so easy to use…
I mean, some things can’t go in the dishwasher. (Unless you’re my old roommates, in which case EVERYTHING goes in the dishwasher. Wooden cutting board, giant stock pot, meat cleaver, you name it. And then you don’t empty the dishwasher and your long-suffering roommate does it while muttering under their breath about how maybe you wouldn’t have had to leave those stacks of plates in the sink if you’d just washed the stock pot by hand.)
One of my college roommates decided that we’d not be using the dishwasher at all because she found out that there were germs in there. (Week-old piles of dishes, however, were not similarly affected.)
I don’t know how viable this is for you, but my tactic when I was in this situation was to do all their dishes for my roommates to preserve my own sanity while I was still living there, and then move out as soon as I could. (I ended up breaking my lease to get out of that living situation, but that’s because the kitchen was probably the least gross thing about the house.)
I’m actually moving to a different state for unrelated reasons pretty soon, which is why I’m not trying to get to the bottom of the issue. (I think part of it is that they are a couple, and so if one cooks, the other cleans, and that communication sometimes breaks down.) I can deal with it for another two months, but it’s making me want very badly a place of my own, which I really… can’t afford, and which might be unwise for other reasons.
I’m sorry that lease ended badly for you, I hope you’ve either got a nice place of your own now or roommates who are a bit less grody.
(ETA: I feel like I’m making my roommates sound terrible– they are not, and for most of our 2 years living together, they’ve been pretty good about kitchen cleanliness, but in the last month or so have gotten sloppy.)
How can that communication break down? There are two of them; surely they can remember whether or not they cooked the meal they just ate and hence whether it’s their turn to clean?
I’m late to the party but it’s not too late, you absolutely CAN say something if it’s been sat there for a week, such as leaving a note stuck to it saying ‘This has been sat here for a whole week, please clean it.’ I have had this problem with housemates both past and current, and as soon as you call them out on it, they wash up straight away. I mean, you know the people you live with and whether that would work, but I feel like a week is the point you stop giving them the benefit of the doubt that they just haven’t had the chance to clean it up yet, and get on their case.
I must disagree with this. The best chex mix recipe is not chex mix at all but rather what is known as “puppy chow”: melted peanut butter and chocolate chips mixed into chex then covered with powdered sugar. Oh. my. god.
I came here to talk about puppy chow. Why is it not a nationwide phenomenon? It was the singular highlight of my elementary school experience.
Also if you buy it at Hy-Vee they call it “people chow,” in keeping with their practice of giving store-brand products hilariously knocked-off names. Panburger Partner!
I had to google Hy-Vee to find out what it is! I didn’t grow up in the Midwest but rather in the suburbs of a major East Coast city, and my mom isn’t even American, so it doesn’t seem like a regional thing? Though, who knows how this recipe came into my family’s hands. I always assumed we got it off the back of the box! I definitely only ever had it homemade and didn’t even know you could buy packaged versions, though the one you describe sounds delightful.
The packaged version is just from the grocery store bakery, in one of those plastic snap boxes that they sell cookies or donuts in?
Chex does sell packaged puppy chow, though I think it’s fairly new. It is vastly inferior to home made.
HY-VEE. 🙂 yes. It is a regional grocery store and anytime anyone cites it I feel a big glow of fellow-feeling in my chest.
I knew an Iowan and a Pennsylvanian who got into a huge argument over whether it was called “puppy chow” or “muddy buddies.” *shrugs* but it is ALL delicious.
Here to talk about Hy-Vee!! The twin cities outer suburbs are getting some and I might have to drive out there just to go. Though it won’t be a real Hy-Vee experience if I don’t run into an old high school acquaintance.
Wow I guess I’m going to have to fight a Pennsylvanian
I mean, I don’t have any strongly held convictions about what this concoction should be called, so you don’t have to fight this particular Pennsylvanian….but yeah. I had no idea what you guys were talking about till builtahouse said “muddy buddies.”
+1 here for muddy buddies. That’s what I have always known it as (but I am a Pennsylvanian so…)
I had never heard of it until I found Pinterest. Believe you me, I would have TORN UP some puppy chow in my youth. This is a real missed opportunity.
I once made puppy chow in middle school and covered it with flour because my brain experienced a random glitch and decided that one edible white baking powder was as good as another. I feel embarrassed about it to this very day.
This is AMAZING. Was it still edible? I imagine it would be. Or you could just add more peanut butter/chocolate meltiness to absorb the flour, then add the sugar, no big. It’s not as bad as, say, putting salt instead of sugar!
Unfortunately I did not realize my error until I presented the puppy chow to my expectant Girl Scout troop. It was fine… just blah… you really shouldn’t eat raw flour.
I once ate a non-trivial amount of puppy chow OFF OF A SIDEWALK, in full view of passersby, because I had dropped it while walking between tailgates one football Saturday in college. Granted, I was not entirely sober, but I feel this is an accurate reflection of my deep love for puppy chow.
I fully approve of this.
A+++ My grandmother, bless her soul, makes a baggie of this for all of the grandkids every Christmas. This plus saltine toffee is all you ever need 🙂
Wait, what? Saltine toffee?! I had never heard of this but I immediately know I love it.
Also known as ‘Christmas crack.’
My sister-in-laws makes some every year, and it’s one of many reasons why I get custody of her should (god forbid) she and my brother ever split up.
What you do is you take saltines and put them on a baking sheet, then melt brown sugar and butter together until it is toffee consistency, then pour it over the saltines. Then you cook that. Then you melt chocolate chips on top.
You can also make it with matzah at Passover, when it is known as “matzah crack.” Ah intergenerational recipe adaptations as a result of intermarriage!
This is a Good Thing you have done, sharing this.
Sent from my iPad
SALTINE TOFFEE OMG everyone is talking about my favorite weird homemade snacks.
Saltine toffee! I haven’t had any since I left the church and stopped having access to potluck desserts at the yearly spaghetti dinner 🙁
I weep for your stomach 🙁
This is a good reminder that I keep meaning to make Chex Mix that is just seasoned Chex cereal because pretzels are gross and those crunchy mini bagel toast things are fine, I’ll eat them once I’ve finished eating all the Chex but let’s face it, they’re taking up valuable room that could have been filled with Chex.
I made microwave popcorn using regular kernels and a brown paper bag for the first (and second and third) time this weekend. I’m not sure it brought me plenty, vitality, or legal expedition but it did feel like magic! Maybe it’s the melted butter that’s the magic part?
It’s also a lot cheaper and you can make exactly how much you want.
This looks great, but I think it’s a little weird that the recipe doesn’t even make one full serving of Chex mix. Right?
I see what you did there.
Too witches. Can’t chex mix.
Okay we’re this far into the comments about Witchy Chex Mix and NO ONE has called it Hex Mix? I am disappoint.
I have a folded piece of paper in my recipe box with the words “secret recipe inside, shh!” written on the outside. It contains my friend Holly’s Cajun grandpa’s recipe for his superior Chex Mix. I’ve had it for twenty years and don’t think Grandpa Wally is still with us, but his mix lives on. The key is mostly adding pecans and a LOT more butter, worchestershire sauce and garlic, plus a little cayenne. I will have to keep the specifics to myself though, after all it is a secret.
I feel like Chex Mix isn’t a thing in Australia or maybe I have just been living under a rock, but this weekend I am going to make it for the first time and enjoy it and maybe even cry over it. There will most likely be chocolate included somewhere in there…
I must have misunderstood you, sorry!
I mean, I don't have any strongly held convictions about what this concoction should be called, so you don't have to fight this particular Pennsylvanian….but yeah. I had no idea what you guys were talking about till builtahouse said "muddy buddies."
especially the dark brown bagel chips!! powerful magick
You can have all of mine. They're known in my household (to me and the cat, that is) as "grease-soaked wafers."