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I LOVE this stuff! I made it for our SPOOKY HALLOWEEN DINNER last year.  It is seriously one of my favorite treats and impossible to stop eating.  It makes a HUGE amount.  You need a giant bowl to mix it in, or you will have to divide it between two bowls.

Below is the basic recipe.  You can add whatever you’d like to make it festive for Halloween or any other holiday.  For Halloween, I added green food coloring to the syrup mixture, and then stirred in candy corns and pumpkins and Reese’s Pieces.

Don’t leave out the almond extract.  I think that is what makes it sooooo yummy!

Gooey Chex Mix

INGREDIENTS:

• 9 cups Rice Chex
• 9 cups Corn Chex
• One box Golden Grahams cereal (generic is great!)
• 1 cup shredded coconut
• 1/2 cup sliced or slivered or chopped almonds
• 2 cups light corn syrup
• 2 cups sugar
• 1.5 cups butter
• 1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
• 1 tsp. pure almond extract

DIRECTIONS:

1. Mix first 5 ingredients in a VERY large bowl that has been sprayed well with cooking spray.
2. In a heavy bottomed saucepan, bring corn syrup, sugar, and butter to a boil.
3. Boil for 4 minutes, stirring constantly.
4. Remove from heat and wait until boiling subsides, then stir in vanilla and almond extract.  Add food coloring now, if desired.
5. Pour over cereal mixture.
6. Stir until cereal is evenly coated.
7. Add in any other ingredients that would melt if added earlier, such as candies or mini marshmallows. Stir.
8. Spread mixture onto cookie sheets sprayed with cooking spray or wax paper and allow to cool.
9. Break into pieces and store in covered container.

I’M BAAAACK!  I am FINALLY ready to start blogging a little again.  We are pretty much settled into our new house.  Doesn’t feel like home yet, but I’m sure that will come eventually.  I’m hoping to post at least once a week!  Wish me luck!

If you like this post PLEASE pin it for me! Thanks!!

So, somehow I got myself into this crazy tradition of a themed food Halloween dinner.  Luckily, I was smart enough NOT to do it ON Halloween, but a day or two before.  My family looks forward to it every year.  I enjoy it too, but I will tell you right now it is A LOT of work.  It’s amazing how much more work it is to make food that actually looks like things.  But it is soooo much fun to see my kids faces when they see what I’ve come up with.  I do different things each year but I always set the table with my Halloween placemats, napkins, goblets, and decorations.  I put plastic bugs in the cups and on the plates.  Its fun.  I keep it simple and just use my regular Halloween décor on the table.

Here is our 2011 dinner!  I think the kids really liked the food this year. 

Ribs on a carving board with a stabbed heart.  I used precooked ribs from Sam’s club.  The heart is a red pepper.  You need to put it on a cutting board so you can stab the butcher knife into the board to keep it standing up.  The idea came from Better Homes and Gardens, BHG.

Spider Oreo truffles.  These were a pain in the butt to make, but aren’t they cute?  The legs are chow mein noodles dipped in chocolate.

This is my favorite chewy Chex mix.  I will post the recipe soon.  It is so yummy.  This time I made it festive for Halloween with green food coloring, candy corns, and Reese’s pieces.

Flayed skin foot with rotten toenails.  This is my favorite cheese ball, formed into a foot, covered with thinly sliced deli ham.  Ketchup on the stump for blood and almond slices painted with black food coloring for toenails.  I made it into a spider the year before.  HERE is the recipe.

A barfing Jack o’ lantern.  My famous guacamole coming out of a Jack o’ lantern’s mouth.  Looks gross, tastes great!  HERE is the recipe.

Bloody intestines.  I used crescent rolls sheets stuffed with chicken roll-up filling.  I will post the recipe for this soon.  It was yummy and looked even better in person.  HERE is where I got the idea, but I didn’t use this recipe.

And finally, Blood Spiked Punch.  I can’t remember what punch I made.  I think it had raspberries.  Any red punch would do.  Choose your favorite one!

Happy family!  The girl is my son’s beautiful girlfriend, not my daughter.  The boys are all mine!

To see a post I did about our 2010 dinner click HERE. 

Do you have any fun Halloween traditions? 

Have you made any fun, themed food? 

I would love to hear your ideas.  Its about time I start planning my dinner for this year!