Addictive Cereal Snack Mix

We're guessing almost everyone in America has had a taste of this age-old snack mix made up of various cereals, nuts and pretzels. This summer, Mark and Sheri' DuMond, along with daughter Jess, went to Jackson Hole, Wyoming to visit Ace, Sallie and Keaton DuMond. While there, a batch of this snack mix was made and brought back home to Seattle. It elicited fond memories; decades ago this snack was made by Ace and Mark's mom, Ruth DuMond. Now we have it on hand all the time.

There are many variations of this snack, and we change it virtually every time we make it. The main alteration Sheri' and Mark instituted is a reduction in butter and salt from the original recipe, just because we believe less fat and sodium is a good thing. We also crank up the heat factor with the addition of some hot sauce.

1/3 cup unsalted butter
2 Tbsp. worcestershire sauce
1 tsp. garlic powder
1/2 tsp. onion powder
1 Tbsp. Tabasco "chipotle" pepper sauce
3 cups Crispix cereal
3 cups Corn Chex cereal
2 cups Wheat Chex cereal
1 cup cashews
1/2 cup peanuts
2 cups pretzel or pretzel chips

Preheat oven to 250 degrees. Melt the butter carefully in a microwave oven. Stir the worcestershire sauce, garlic powder, onion powder and Tabasco sauce into the butter. Pour this mixture into a large baking dish and add all the rest of the ingredients. Stir well to coat everything completely.

Bake in the oven for about 45 minutes, stirring thoroughly every 15 minutes. Immediately spread the mix on parchment paper or paper towels and let it cool completely before storing. After the snack mix has cooled, store it in an airtight container.