SMOKED SNACK MIX    

We've probably all been eating this stuff for years, everyone has an aunt or a mom or a cousin who breaks out the Texas Trash snack mix, especially around the holidays. It got a mixture of crackers, pretzels, cereal and nuts.  Everyone puts their own spin on it, they make it sweeter or spicier or saltier or tangier or.... smokier?? 

I have made a few batches, and I won't swear that this recipe is my last tweak to it, but my true goal here is arm you with some helpful hints, a few promising starting ingredients and enough "know how" to confidently give it a go on your own. Oh, and let's start with helpful hint number one... DON'T WAIT FOR THE HOLIDAYS! I don't know how this got relegated to a few months out of the year, but that's nonsense.  This snack mix was perfect on the beach back in June and it was tasty while watching a rerun of a football game last week. We devoured a whole batch during a pool party too! 

The Mix

I'm keeping it kind of simple with one cereal type, one cracker type, one nut and one pretzel. Because I only wanted to use a single cereal I passed over the traditional Chex cereal (go ahead and gasp and sigh). Instead, I grabbed a box of Crispx. Each piece of Crispx is made up of one side corn cereal and one side wheat cereal. This was much simpler to me than grabbing 2 boxes of Chex and trying to portion them correctly. For a cracker, White Cheddar Cheezits get the nod, along with plain roasted peanuts and mini twist pretzels. I was looking for something close to similar size, and pretzel sticks just didn't fit that description. 

But what about flavor profile? I wanted a bit of sweet and a bit of spicy and a lot of savory. And a good snack mix will have you wanting to enjoy the taste of the individual contributors as well as catching some harmony from mixing it up a bit.  The White Cheddar Cheezits bring a savory, cheesy quality, so I didn't want to mask that too much. And I chose to sweeten up the cereal to give that smoky sweet crunch.  The pretzels and nuts, coated in the spiced mix brings the whole package together. 

The Hardware

You are going to need a smoker, and it doesn't have to be fancy, but if you are dreaming of whipping up a batch in your dorm room, this isn't the recipe for you. A large, disposable aluminum full pan comes in very handy for this, as well. I used an ice pick to poke a bunch of holes in the bottom of the aluminum pan. This helps some of the smoke penetrate into the bottom of the pan. Other than that, you should be able to pull what you need together very easily. You will need a couple of mixing bowls, a microwave to melt the butter and something to store your snack mix in.

The Consumables

2 sticks of butter (Yes, 2.  No, don't substitute)

1 box of Crispx Cereal

1 box of White Cheddar Cheezits

1/2 bag Mini Twist Pretzels

2 cups unsalted roasted peanuts

1/4 cup honey

1 tablespoon Hot Sauce

1 tablespoon Worcestershire Sauce

1 tablespoon Creole Seasoning

1 tablespoon Garlic Salt

1 teaspoon Ground Mustard

1 teaspoon Onion Powder

1 teaspoon Crushed Red Pepper

The Method to the Madness

A Smoky Treat

Go ahead and fire up your smoker. For me, that means about a half chimney of charcoal briquettes started and a few chunks of pecan wood on standby. I use a small fire to maintain a good smoking temperature of between 225° and 250°. We don't really have to "cook" this mix, rather we want to let it develop a smoky flavor and we want the wetness to dry out, leaving us with a tasty, crispy, non-greasy snack. 

A bit of Sweet

To get my sweet spot, I melted 1 stick of butter with the 1/4 cup of honey.  I tossed ONLY the cereal in the warm melted honey butter. Make sure that you toss this really well, but really gently.  The cereal is light and crispy and will crush easily if you get too carried away.  But, you also need this to be well-coated or you will end up with really sticky clumps of cereal that will be more difficult to break apart later.

Spicy and Savory

To get my spicy and savory mix, I melted the second stick of butter and mixed in the remaining spices and sauces and tossed this with the pretzels, nuts and cheezit crackers. Again, make sure you toss this together really well so that everything is well-coated.  If not, you will end up with really sticky and saucy pieces and some that are dry and bland. 

So far, I have kept the sweet and spicy ingredients in separate containers.  I want the cereal to stay sweet and I want the rest to stay spicy. So I really don't want to mix these together until they have finished drying out in the smoker. To do this, I carefully poured the cereal into one side of the aluminum pan, and I carefully poured the savory mix into the other half of the aluminum pan.  Sure there is a part right in the middle where they may touch, but in general, this will let the flavors stabilize before they get mixed together. 

Gently place your pan on the smoker and close the lid. If you can maintain the mild temperatures then you won't have to worry about anything burning.  You can open the lid and give it a stir every half hour or so. After about an hour and half, it should be dry enough to mix the whole pan together and let it smoke for another half hour or hour until you are happy with the flavor. If you taste while it's hot, don't worry if the texture of the nuts and crackers is kind of "soft". Once this cools, everything will be nice and crisp.

I hope that this recipe is more of an inspiration to you than a hard and fast recipe. If you look closely at the picture, you will see that I also included some slivered almonds.  They were just "okay", so I didn't include them in the recipe above.  But I am still interested in trying raw almonds or pecans instead of or in addition to peanuts.  I may also do a "sweet only" treatment on some pecans, almonds, cashews and peanuts. Get out there and try something.  And if it works, let me know about it!