Munchy Monday: Chex Mix!

 Many years ago whenever we went to my inlaws for Thanksgiving or Christmas my mother-in-law made Chex Mix.  Our family loved it. A week ago Dear One asked me if I was going to make Chex Mix this year.  Well, I had not thought of doing that.  I decided to begin thinking about it.  I looked for a recipe for Chex Mix.  The cereal boxes had recipes.

The recipe rang a bell so I made it.  The cereal box chex mix recipe did not give instructions, only the ingredients.  SO...I made the mix then cooked the recipe at 300 degrees F.  This was obviously too high a temperature.

When I was bemoaning the less than optimal  results of my first effort, our daughter said she had her grandmother's recipe. She sent it to me and I made Mother C's recipe.

Above is the Chex Mix made at the proper oven temperature.

This was Mother C's Recipe:

Chex Mix

9 cup Chex: Rice and corn mixed
1.5 cup peanuts
1.5 cup pretzel sticks broken in half
6 Tbl butter melted
2 Tbl Worcestershire sauce
1-1/2 tsp season salt
1 tsp garlic powder 
1/2 tsp onion powder 

200 for 1 hour. Stir every 20 minutes

Put all the chexs, peanuts, and pretzels/Cheezits in a large roasting pan. Melt the butter and add the seasonings.  Whisk well then pour the mixture over the chex mix.   As far as the butter, I did not want 2 Tablespoons leftover so I used the whole 8 Tablespoons of butter.  Dear One does not like pretzels so I used Cheezits Crackers in place of pretzels.  

The oven at 300 degrees was too hot for the mix so I followed her 200 degree F oven heat.

In the picture on the left below is the Mother C's Chex Mix recipe.  On the right is the Chex Mix from the cereal boxes but cooked at 100 degrees too hot.  Also that mix has Wheat Chex which burned and gave the mix a rather unpleasant taste.  Still...it was not so bad but what some people in our house were able to choke down a good bit of it...!

If you want to make it, you will find it a nice crunchy treat and possibly better for you than the store bought chex mix.

Musings: The King's Food is a Bad Idea

 Recently we were studying the Book of Daniel in the Old Testament of the Holy Bible/Hebrew Bible.  I have always loved Daniel and the stories of faith and courage we read.  This time when I read the story of Daniel and his friends refusing to eat the rich food the king was providing for them it taught me a lesson I wish I had learned many years ago.

You know the story:  the chief of the eunuchs was taking care of these captured Hebrew boys who had been brought into the king's court.  When they saw the food that was to be provided for them, they begged off and asked that they be allowed to eat pulse and water and possibly other simple food.  At the end of the ten-day test period those boys were beautiful and healthy and the other young men who had eaten the rich foods and beverages were in rough shape, or at least not strong and full of health as Daniel and friends were.

This story caught my attention this time.  If you know me, you know I have struggled with weight issues ever since the unspeakably difficult things I went through as a young girl.  At that time I put on a lot of weight as a protection. (Actually it did not turn out to be a protection, but I did not know it at the time. I also did not realize that is what I was doing by pigging out on a regular basis...trying to put on a shield of protection.)

To come up closer to today, in July I saw my wonderful healthcare provider who suggested it was really time to go for it on the weight loss front.  She suggested a couple of things including getting little containers that helped with portion control.  She wanted me to come back in a month having taken off 3 pounds. I did order the containers and sort of used them for a while.  When I went back in August I was down 4 pounds.  She was so happy. I was marginally happy because I thought I would have lost a good deal more.  Well, that would only have happened if I had actually used a portion-control way of eating.

Since that time I went through a period of eating out with friends, eating meat of some nature two or three times a week and adding commercial salad dressing to our salads and other fats to our regular diet.  This made the salads even more appetizing.  Moving to the present day/after studying Daniel, I find that I have successfully gained 20 pounds in 3 months.  THE KING'S FOOD HAS NOT BEEN GOOD TO ME!  It has been very delicious and I have enjoyed every single lunch or dinner out with our friends.

Now this has to stop. If I want to be beautiful and healthy like Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego, I need to get a grip, stop it with the luscious king's food, and go back to eating pulse and water.  I take pulse to mean eating whole plants.  Which is funny that I have not been doing this right along.  That is how I lost fifty pounds when we first came to South Carolina.  I won't tell you how much I have gained back...

Now I am starting over.  Right at holiday season...!  Can you believe it?!  If you are a praying person, please pray for me to grab on to self-control, use portion control, and the simple foods that Daniel ate.  I would appreciate the help.

 

This is an example of simple yummy food with a portion controlled system.  This is a burrito bowl.  The bowl is about half full of freshly washed spinach, a half cup of fat-free homemade refried beans, a half cup of cooked plain brown rice, lots of chopped scallions and a few carrot as decoration, though I did eat them.  The refried beans and rice were put on the spinach hot out of the pot.  I mixed this all up and ate it down. It was so good. I was not hungry again for hours.  I hope I am smart enough to make this again often.  Sadly, Dear One ate his but was not excited by it.  Oh well.  I may have to find something else for him, or just wear him down by serving it three times a week! Or some variation of this. If you have suggestions that do not include meat, fish, dairy, or fats, I would love to hear. And mushrooms. He does not care for mushrooms.  If he recognizes them in the food...

Munchy Monday: Instant Pot Corn Pudding

 
Last week Child Number Four came for a very short but oh so wonderful visit.  We had a great time together and got lots of projects done even though he worked at his job during the day.  I wanted to make all kinds of good food for him, but he really only wanted to eat the leftovers in our refrigerator. I get that!  I LOVE to open my sister's refrigerator and eat her leftovers.  She always has such interesting scraps in there; things we never eat here.

The one thing I did make fresh for us was Instant Pot Corn Pudding.  Dear One really got into it.  He might possibly have eaten half the bowl...!  That made me so happy.  Child Number Four seemed to like it, too.  I am thinking of adding that to our regular food rotation.

Here is what I did:

Instant Pot Corn Casserole/Pudding

1 egg
1 box Jiffy Cornmeal Muffin Mix

1/2 cup butter, melted
1 can creamed corn
1 can whole kernel corn, drained
1 teaspoon dried minced onions
1 large jalapeno pepper, seeded and chopped fine
1 cup sour cream
2 cups water for the Instant Pot liner
1/4  cup shredded Cheddar cheese

Beat the egg in a medium-sized glass bowl then mix in the cornmeal muffin mix, the melted butter, both cans of corn, the onions and the jalapeno pepper dice.  Stir in the sour cream and mix well.

Put the trivet in an 8-quart Instant Pot liner bowl and pour in the 2 cups of water. It works most easily if you are using the trivet which has handles on it so you can easily lift out the bowl when done.  There are other ways to do it, though.

Put the bowl of corn pudding mix which you have covered with parchment paper then aluminum foil on top of the trivet.  Attach the cover and make sure the Instant Pot is in the Sealing mode.  Pressure cook for 45 minutes.  When it is done, let the pressure reduce naturally then when the pin drops, carefully lift the bowl out.  It would be good to have mitts or pot holders on your hands.  Be careful not to let the glass bowl slide off the trivet, drop to the floor, smash, and ruin your wonderful pudding. No, I did not do that but I was nervous as a cat that I would.  Next time I am likely to use the liner for the 3 Quart Instant Pot instead of the glass bowl for the cooking unit.  I thought the bowl would be more attractive on the table.

When I took the Instant Pot
cover off I spread the shredded cheese on top the put the cover back on for a few minutes while I set the table.  It melted down beautifully and, Mister, that was one delicious meal.  Yes, it was almost the whole meal that night.  I can tell you that I wanted more.  And more!  But somehow managed to hold off...

Cute New Trees At The Temple

 We had two Palmetto Palm trees at the Columbia South Carolina Temple.  One was about six feet tall and the other was way taller.  In the last couple of weeks those two trees were removed and traded in for two Palmetto Palms that are the same size.  This picture was not taken at an angle that shows they are the same size but they are the same height.  They are very cute I think!

When I was outside the temple on my way to the parking lot I happened to run into a member of the temple presidency who told me about these trees.  He also told me that Palmetto Palms are wonderful trees.  When cannonballs hit structures in the Civil War that were made of Palmetto Palms, the cannonballs bounced off instead of splintering like most other wooden structures did. I find that interesting.