Puppy Chow

A friend of my mom's introduced my family to this treat when I was about 6 or 7 years old by having us help her make it. It gets its name from looking sort of like dog kibble. You may know it by another name, such as People Chow or Muddy Buddies. This is another thing that you only ever used to be able to get by making it yourself, but I have seen it fully prepared and for sale in some grocery stores. I have very recently found friends who also know what this is from their childhood and absolutely love it. If you love the combination of chocolate and peanut butter and you also like sweets, you'll probably love it too.

If you want to be extra (gross), you can put it in a bowl, pour milk over it and eat it like cereal, like I did very occasionally when I was a kid. Yikes! Seriously, it tastes better all by itself.

Notes:

• Instead of shaking it in a bag to coat it with powdered sugar, my mom used to leave the cereal in the bowl, sift the powdered sugar over the chocolate coated cereal, and mix until it was coated. This way tends to coat the pieces less evenly but might potentially be less messy and involve fewer containers.

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RECIPE:

Puppy Chow
Makes about 8 cups, serves 8-12 as a snack

6 cups Crispix cereal (about 1 12 oz box)
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup creamy peanut butter
½ cup (4 oz, 1 stick) butter
2 cups powdered sugar

Place cereal in large mixing bowl and set aside. Melt together chocolate chips, peanut butter, and butter on stove or in the microwave on high power in 30 second increments, and mix until fully combined. Pour chocolate mixture over cereal and stir gently until coated. Place 1 cup powdered sugar in a large, clean paper or plastic bag; add half of the cereal, close the bag and shake until coated. Repeat with second cup of powdered sugar and other half of cereal mixture. Store in an airtight container.