Posted in Homemaking

On Friday I tackled the daunting task of cleaning my pantry.  I am very blessed to have a small pantry just off the main entrance to our home and kitchen.  This large closet with shelves is located right next to our back door and remains quite cool during the winter months.  I removed everything from the pantry shelves and the pantry floor.  I put all of the food and storage items on the kitchen table, which soon overflowed to the counters and the floor.  Keeping busy hauling dry goods, coolers, and old lunch boxes kept me warm in spite of the below freezing temperatures which permeated our entrance and pantry area.

Although it took the better part of my afternoon, in the end I had a lovely, clean, and organized pantry once again.  I did throw away a few items that were "leftovers" from past cooking experiments, but I tried to find a use for almost everything.  One thing I had left at the end of my cleaning jag was a pile of dry cereal ends.  I had four to six bags of cereal with an inch of cereal left in the bag.  I didn't have the heart to throw away cereal when the regular price of it at the market is so high!  That's when I decided to make what will now and forever be known as "pantry-treats."

I pulled out my rice krispie treat recipe from my favorite recipe box and proceeded with the recipe.  In my treat recipe I mixed four different types of cereal.  Only one cup of the cereal had a sugar coating, the rest were very plain-types of cereal.  I doubled the traditional rice krispie treat recipe.  I used a little more than 10 cups of cereal, a stick of butter, and a large bag of mini-marshmallows.  After melting the butter and the marshmallows using the microwave and stirring after each minute, I added my conglomeration of cereals.  I poured all this into a 9x13 cake pan and let it sit.

We ate our pantry treats as part of a car-picnic on our way to a great thrift store that has a half-price sale on Friday evenings.  My husband thought that the use of different cereals gave the treats a better texture and some added flavor.  I will definitely be using this recipe again to clear out all those left-over cereals!