So, I had this glorious plan of posting a new Christmas-related post each day for the week of Christmas.

We see how far I’ve gotten with that.

What can I say, the mix of the holidays, weird work hours, and hauling a goat to the vet three hours away yesterday has not been conducive to my blogging plan. Oh, and no worries about the goat — she is doing okay and should be on the upswing shortly. And I also found out she’s pregnant with twins! I saw their little heartbeats on the ultrasound. So, that was cool. I’ll be sharing more about why she had to go to the vet later on in a video, so subscribe to my youtube channel if you’d like to see that. But for right now she is doing well and should be doing even better soon.

Anywho, about those Honey Nut Clusters.

You’ve probably seen different variations of these ooey gooey treats before. There are a lot of different creative ways people have mixed up these cereal-marshmallow concoctions! And to think it all started with rice crispie treats!

Although they’ve been made many times, many ways…I wanted to share the version I like best with you.

It doesn’t get any more simple than this. Of course it’s not exactly healthy, but ya know. It’s the holiday season. So whoop-dee-doo!

I’ll stop with the song references now and just get to the food.

Here’s the Recipe:

Honey Nut Clusters

Tools:

– sauce pan

– spatula or spoon

– parchment paper

– baking pan, optional

Ingredients:

– 6 cups honey nut cereal

– 1 bag mini marshmallows

– 1/2 cup peanut butter

– 1/2 stick butter

– Splash of vanilla extract

Make it a little less guilty by using real peanut butter with no funky stuff added, real vanilla, and a slightly better brand of cereal — I chose an organic one. As for the marshmallows…well, I can’t help you there, unless you feel motivated to make them from scratch. I didn’t!

Instructions:

First, melt the butter in a saucepan on medium-low heat. Add the peanut butter and vanilla and whisk until smooth. Then add the marsha-marsha-marshmallows and stir continuously until melted. Be careful not to let it scorch. Sugar is also highly flammable, so be careful about that as well. (You know how marshmallows are so easy to burst into flames when cooking over an open fire? Yeah, you don’t want that to happen in your kitchen! Just keep the heat low and keep an eye on it and you’ll be fine.)

Once melted, remove from heat and pour over your cereal immediately. Mix well until coated.

Now you can either press into a well buttered baking dish to make bars a la rice crispies, or you can do what I prefer and use two spoons to drop little “cookies” onto parchment paper. It’s important to work quickly because it gets really hard to work with once it starts to harden.

Allow to cool at room temperature until firm. Layer in a food container with parchment paper in between the layers and seal well. Or be lazy like me and toss them in a plastic baggy and seal. They’ll stick together, but you can pull them apart pretty easy.

And that’s it!

Cheers