The Pictures Don't Do It Justice

Puppy Chow. That's what we first heard it called. It has other names. And it's not really for your puppy. Or your dog. Or any pet for that matter. But it is de.li.cious.

You know what's sad. Hubby can't have any. It has peanut butter in it. He's not allergic to peanut butter. He has gout. He's had it since he was 28. Yes, young, I know. And after an extremely severe spell, a trip to a real health food store (not GNC) to get cherry juice (since we ran out), and an off-hand comment by the clerk, and we realized the culprit of many of his outbreaks. Not the usual ones...beans, shellfish, doughnuts/pastries...but peanuts.

Here's the recipe for this yummy snack (if you click on the link you will get the original recipe; I've tweaked it a little, for example I use milk chocolate instead of semisweet chocolate chips):

Chex Muddy Buddies:

Ingredients:

9 cups Chex cereal
1 cup milk chocolate chips
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups powdered sugar

Preparation Directions:

1. Into large bowl, measure cereal; set aside.
2. Measure out powdered sugar and place into 2-gallon resealable food storage plastic bag. Set aside.
3. In 1-quart microwavable bowl, microwave chocolate chips, peanut butter and butter uncovered on High 1 minute; stir. Microwave about 30 seconds longer (if needed) or until mixture can be stirred smooth. Stir in vanilla. Pour mixture over cereal, stirring until evenly coated. When I put the mixture in the microwave, I have found that if I put the chocolate chips in the bowl, dump the p.b. on top of them, and then take my 1/4 cup slab of butter and push it down in the middle of the p.b., it only takes the 1 minute.
4. Pour into 2-gallon plastic bag containing powdered sugar. Seal bag; shake until well coated. Spread on waxed paper to cool. Store in airtight container in refrigerator (if there is any left!). I use a smaller 1-gallon plastic bag.

The minute I pour it out of the bag onto the waxed paper the vultures that have been circling quickly come in for a landing.

My kids can't get enough of this snack, and it's a fun one for them to help with. I'm lucky if there's any left after 24 hours. Do you have a fun snack too?


(Now I'm going to go ahead and make a little disclaimer here about my GNC comment, just in case anybody reading this works there or loves it or anything like that. I can only speak based on the one purchase of cherry pills I made there because I didn't want to drive the 30 minutes to the health food store in another town where I usually bought cherry juice. When Hubby had this horrible gout attack (we're talking blowing on his foot caused pain), I drove over to get cherry juice and G.O.U.T., which is something else that was helpful. For some reason I decided to compare the dosages on the cherry juice from the health food store and the cherry pills from GNC, and do you know that one dose of the cherry juice was more concentrated than the entire bottle of cherry pills? So I don't buy anything at GNC, and that's why. Not that there's anything I'd buy there anyway, except maybe cherry stuff.)