Thursday, January 20, 2011

TEXAS Trash!!


Texas Trash is a glorified Chex Mix recipe. My mother made this for years and years and YEARS when she was working for the Telephone Answering Service. I do not know if SHE named it Texas Trash but I have a sneaking suspicion she DID! AND I will tell you why!
At Christmas she would make this in a HUMONGOUS amount!
She would use a brand new HUGE galvanized TRASH CAN!
After lining it with one of those heavy trash bags she would proceed to dump in all the ingredients...
kind of layering them as she went.
Rice Chex
Wheat Chex
Corn Chex
Multi Grain Chex (this is new and I used 1 box!)
Peanuts
Pretzels
Repeat
Repeat again
She repeated until the can was FULL!!!
I made this in a somewhat smaller batch this time.
I only use a white kitchen trash sack and filled it about half full.
I used:
7 boxes of various Chex cereals
3 bags of pretzels
1 big container of roasted peanuts with sea salt
3 lb. of fancy mixed NUTS with sea salt

The next step is to mix the seasonings.
Mother never used a recipe but she always used the following ingredients:
Worcestershire sauce.....I used 2 bottles
Lowery's Seasoning Salt.....a LOT
Powered Garlic
Butter
* any other salts/seasonings you would like

You bring the sauce and butter to a boil, add seasonings, pour over the dry mix, toss to coat all the pieces and then pour out onto cookie sheets, sprinkle with additional seasoning salt and bake in a 250* oven for an hour....
turning it occasionally so it all browns evenly.



Let cool and pack in tins or other air tight containers



I have to tell you right here that HONEY roasted nuts or ANY honey flavored things do NOT work in Texas Trash. It is edible and we have been known to eat it ALL but it is not the best choice for this recipe.

Mother made this for everyone at Christmas. We each got a big pop corn can or coffee can FULL!
Now while Summer and Jesse, Jr. ate it.....
I do not think they savoured it as much as Amber and Benjamin did!

During the years we home schooled they liked to pour them out a bowl of Texas Trash when we started our history lessons.......which was Texas history at the time. It became a tradition.
The BEST gift their Grandma ever gave them was Texas Trash!
She continued to make it for them and them alone long after she retired.
I can still remember the last time she and I made it together BEFORE the stroke she had in 2005.
We doled that batch out and made it last as long as possible.
Then one day I bought all the ingredients and we made it together again......after her stroke.
She could not remember exactly how to do it but as we progressed it slowly came back to her and she would say, "YES!! That's RIGHT!!"



And THAT'S how you make Texas Trash!!
We like it pretty salty but you can do pretty much anything you want with this type of recipe!
Chili powder and/or any of a number of flavor combinations.



This container is going to Benjamin out in California!
A little 'Taste of Home' for him!


And since Amber loves it as much if not more.....I packed a tin full for her as well!


I have THREE more sheets in the oven as I write!
If you are in the neighborhood......
Come on by!
I will bag you up a bit of

Texas Trash!!




5 comments:

Luann said...

Believe it or not, Joanne use to make this at Christmas too along with divinity, peanut brittle and fudge. She always made goodie boxes for her bridge friends and coworkers. thanks for the good memories.. from what I recall it was a very similar receipe just smaller amount.

Robin@DecoratingTennisGirl said...

Ummmm, shall I send my address??? lol You are a good Momma!

Mummers AKA Summer said...

You are right, Jesse & I do not love it like Amber & Ben. You so out did yourself, but I promise there was a buzz in my part of the office about your blog. Plus, Rhett & Christine bragged about already having some.

Linda said...

I am at Mother's now showing her the blog post using Nita's computer. Nita, I tried to comment from your account but you are signed out! Do not understand why your comments don't 'stick!'
Anyway, Mother enjoyed me reading the blog to her.....and I brought her a bit of Texas Trash to munch on!

All the packages are IN THE MAIL!

peggy said...

I guess it needs to be BIG to be named after Texas. You have some good memories there.