As a kid growing up, Ma and Dad were very social people who did a lot of entertaining. Many a night I remember watching Ma prepare the hors d’oeuvres or Horses Doovers, as us kids liked to call them. In those days, any good party served pretzels and nuts besides things called ‘Devils on Horseback’, coloured cocktail onions, cubed cheese and cabanossi, french onion dip with the essential Jatz biscuit, and smoked oysters if you wanted to be real posh!
The next day there was always left over pretzels and nuts among other things. From these ingredients we would create, Nuts and Bolts which us kids used to devour. Years later I decided to try and make them again and was worried they wouldn’t taste the same….but they did!
Ingredients
2 1/2 cups of Nutri-Grain cereal (sounds yuk, but trust me it’s awesome)
1 1/2 cups of pretzels (I use the mini ones but we used to use the sticks)
1 cup of salted peanuts
35g packet of French Onion Soup Mix
1 scant tablespoon of lemon pepper (no added salt)
1/3 cup of olive oil
Method
- Preheat oven to 180ºC. Line a large baking tray with baking paper.
- Combine cereal, nuts, pretzels, soup mix, lemon pepper and oil in a large bowl. Mix well to coat.
- Spread over baking tray and bake for 15 minutes, stirring after every 5 minutes or until hot and crisp. (I like mine to be well done and brown)
- Set aside to cool and place in an airtight jar.
Unfortunately they don’t last very long because I can’t stop eating them once I’ve made a batch!!
aged carer experience 