Our Family Recipes

By Bill Connolly Jr

The following is enough ingredients to make 12 one gallon zip lock bags of Texas Trash.  You can’t mix it all at once so divide everything by 3. You can vary the heat for each batch: Mild (no cayenne pepper), Medium (1 Tbsp cayenne) and Hot (2 Tbsp cayenne).

The dry ingredients has more sweet items to compliment the spicy cayenne.  You can add more or less of the dry ingredients based on your favorite items.

Supplies

• 3 large heavy duty trash bags (for mixing 3 batches of ingredients)
• 4 large aluminum roasting pans (can bend and shape to fit stove) to cook mix
• 2 large aluminum roasting pans or big bowls to let mix cool
• 12 gallon freezer bags or other containers

Sauce Ingredients

• 12 sticks butter or margarine
• 12 Tbsp chili powder
• 6 Tbsp cayenne pepper
• 6 tsp cinnamon (optional but pairs nicely with cayenne)
• 6 Tbsp garlic salt or garlic powder if you are cutting back on salt
• 24 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce

Chex Ingredients

• 1 box Rice Chex
• 1 box Wheat Chex
• 1 box Corn Chex
• 1 box Crispix

Salty Ingredients

• 2 bag pretzel sticks (prefer ultra thin if you can find them)
• 1 bag oyster crackers
• 1 can ShoeString potatoes, large
• 2 bag Bugles, large

Cheesy Ingredients

• 1 box Goldfish
• 1 box Whales/Penguins
• 1 box Cheez-Its

Sweet Ingredients

• 1 box Honey Nut Cheerios
• 1 box Honeycombs
• 1 box Corn Pops
• 1 box Honey Grahams
• 1 box Honey Chex

• 6 lbs mixed nuts of your choice (optional)

1. Divide chex, salty, cheesy and sweet ingredients into three large trash bags. Close the bags and gently tumble to mix ingredients.
2. In a pan on low heat, add 1/3 of the sauce ingredients and melt, stirring frequently.
3. Open bag, ladle 1/4 of sauce onto the mix, stirring the sauce as you ladle. Close the bag and gently tumble the ingredients.  Repeat until the sauce is gone.
4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 for the other two trash bags.
5. Bake for 1 hour at 200 to 225 degrees, stirring every 20 minutes and rotating pans around the oven. After an hour the ingredients should be dry, if not, cook for another 20 minutes.
6. If you use nuts, bake them separately, with some sauce.  When you put the finished mix into bags/bowls/containers, add nuts to each to evenly distribute.