Age group(s) for this recipe:
Elementary School
Middle School
High School & Beyond

Estimated time:
1 1/2 hours

Number of servings:
yields approx. 12 cups

Ingredients: (Hit your return key to start a new line)
6 Tbsp. butter or margarine*

2 Tbsp. Worchestershire sauce

1 1/2 tsp. seasoned salt

3/4 tsp. garlic powder

1/2 tsp. onion powder

9 cups total 'square-shaped, unsweetened cereal', your favorite kind(s)

1 c. mixed nuts

1 c. pretzels

1 c. cheese crackers or broken bagel chips

Directions:
Heat oven to 250 degrees F. Melt butter in Big roasting pan or oblong cake pan, in oven. Add Worchestershire sauce and seasonings; stir. Add the cereal and other Crunchy things; stir until evenly coated.

Bake for one hour, stirring every 15 minutes. Cool and store in airtight container.

Microwave: Melt butter in large microwavable bowl UN-covered, on high. Stir in W. Sauce and seasonings. Stir in the Crunching items until evenly coated. Microwave on High for 5-6 minutes (approximation, since microwaves vary in power), stirring completely every 2 minutes. Cool and store in airtight container.

Other suggestions and comments:
You can reduce the fat content by cutting the amount of butter/margarine in half...but sometimes that just leads to the "I can eat more!" thang...

I like to use 1/2 butter, and 1/2 margarine. That gives the flavor of butter, with less chance of scorching. Make sure the margarine isn't the diet/watered down stuff...

I've watched my family dig for the cashews and almonds and ignore peanuts, so we usually purchase the Deluxe mixed nuts. Buying three different kinds of cereal for the Mix is likewise useless (and expensive!), if the family picks thru for a favorite, crumbling the other stuff. Use the kind(s) of cereal the family enjoys! Virtually any ready-made dry cereal bits (without sugar coating and food coloring) could be tried.

Likewise, if your family luvs cheese crackers, but hates pretzels, bow to popular demand and use more of the stuff they like. Nuts can be left out, w/other crunchy items substituted.

Butter and seasoning, combined with approximately 12 cups o' crunchies. The ratio of 'nuts' to 'bolts' is really up to you...it's just kind of nice to have a nice color, shape, and flavor variation.

Another area you can play with is the seasonings. Worchestershire sauce is fairly standard, but you can monkey with the other stuff a bit...for example, I was out of the usual seasoning salt, but had a lemon pepper version. I didn't want it too lemon-y, though, so the substitution was some o' that, plus some salt-free herb seasoning that was sitting around the cupboard. (That balanced that fact that I couldn't find onion Powder, but had onion Salt; the salt content should be reasonable!)

I made a Double Batch of this in an Enormous cake pan. Part is for family, and part will be mailed to a grandmother who lives out of state. She can be hard to buy things for; anything too "nice" or unfamiliar is going to end up in the cupboard, untouched. Grandma and her generation invented this Nuts n' Bolts type snack stuff...so I am hopeful she'll welcome a big batch of it, now that she's not much into cooking anymore. It's in a plastic see-thru jar. I have other stuff I'm putting in the box, too, but this stuff is going to fill up a large part of available space. (I got some "hot cider mix" packets, and I hope she'll try the stuff! I had no idea the powdered stuff had vitamin C in it.)