{in the kitchen with Sam} Anniversary Chex Mix

So yesterday was Chris and I's 4th wedding anniversary. September 23rd marked 6 years of dating! Seems like we've accomplished quite a bit in that relatively short amount of time! In honor of our anniversary, I decided to prepare a yummy dessert. Now, let's be clear, Chris and I have different opinions of "what's yummy". He will house three bowls of cereal for dinner, while I crave home made squash soup. He's simply pleased, I however require a little more complexity. Probably explains our marriage! Since I was preparing a dessert for him, I took into consideration some of his favorite ingredients like cereal and caramel and knew I needed to keep it simple. I found a recipe for a chex mix dessert that I instantly knew, Chris would love. Had it been I was cooking for myself, I would have probably chosen a decadent cupcake of some sort with a delicious raspberry filling. I just want the blog to be clear, in the event I ever forget, what kinds of foods I like. So to keep the blog G rated I changed the name of the dessert. It was originally titled "Better than (rhymes with chex) Chex Mix". I figured since I let Sam help me prepare these foods, that title wouldn't work. I renamed it "Anniversary Chex Mix". I know, super creative title. I am going to go ahead and disappoint all of my faithful readers now by admitting I didn't get the "Sam" of approval yet. Let's just say there was a situation yesterday with a bag, candy wrappers, my carpet and my daughters. Treats weren't on the top of the list for them yesterday!

{The Recipe}
1 box of Chocolate Chex Mix (8 cups)
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
6 tablespoons butter or margarine
3 tablespoons light corn syrup
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup of expensive Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, MINI size
1 cup MINIATURE marshmallows
1/2 cup caramel squares
1 Tbsp half and half
1/2 cup MILK chocolate baking chips
1/2 cup WHTIE chocolate baking chips
1 tsp coarse sea salt

I have seen on a lot of cooking blogs these really great pictures, and wanted to do my own version of the "line up all of your ingredients picture". This would be a realistic "my kid won't stop eating the chocolate chips from my lined up ingredients picture".

What will be important for me to remember about this recipe is that if you do not have any of the ingredients, it is a very pricey dessert. BUT, you don't use all of the chocolate chips and Reese's, so I see a yummy trail mix in my future. I started off by heating up the sugar, butter, and corn syrup in the microwave for a minute. Then you mix it up really good, so it's nice and creamy.

Mix in the baking soda and in a separate, larger bowl coat the 8 cups of cereal. I had to microwave in minute increments, for three minutes, and mix the cereal each time so that all the pieces were covered. Worth noting, Cara was home sick from school yesterday and so badly wanted to help, but she couldn't stop coughing long enough to do anything constructive without spreading her germs into my dessert. You can't see her in this picture, but she is standing in the background crying as Sam helps me coat the cereal. I guess I will need to have our own baking session soon, which is totally fine with me!

After it's coated, you spread it out on a wax paper lined cookie sheet and let cool for about ten minutes.

After it has cooled, you sprinkle on the mini mallows and Reese's, which makes it look so incredibly delicious. And at this point, you also need to pop a few mallows and Reese's in your mouth, to make sure they are suitable for the recipe.

Now for the messy, create a lot of dishes part. You have to melt the chocolates and the caramels so that you can drizzle them on. Sure you could do a double broiler thing, but I mean, I know myself and that's a little too much work when the microwave is right there, waiting to be used. The trick though is getting the chocolates melted without burning them. And having melted A LOT of chocolate in my microwave, I have found the perfect time of 47 seconds for white chocolate chips and 1:23 for milk chocolate. The caramel proved easier with the added half and half and also took a little more than a minute to melt. I created three dirty bowls and three dirty spoons in the process...booo. But when you see all of these ingredients come together as one, it's hard to worry about dishes. The last step would have been to sprinkle on the coarse salt, but I chose to take pictures and forget.

Delightful! Not so delightful was my cell phone attempt at a cool food blogger picture. It's blurry and horrible but whatever, no one reads my blog.

I made some romantic parfaits in wine glasses tied with our wedding colors as well...

...and Chris loved it! He ate his entire parfait! I only made it through the first layer, that's how sweet it was. Our anniversary dessert was a success! Happy four years of marriage to us...cheers!