Snacksgiving will replace Thanksgiving 2020.
You’re welcome.
I’m going to be honest… I’m going to go a little deep and then I’ll bring you back up and finish off with some great recipes. But you’ll have to go in the trenches with me for just a minute.
As we take time to celebrate our friends, family, health, food, culture and country… all things that have been tested to the max in 2020… I encourage you to create space for some hard questions.
Why do we celebrate Thanksgiving? Have you ever really looked into it? It’s definitely not the stories we were told as children. It’s not the Indians and the Pilgrims happily sharing a meal to thank the Pilgrims for “helping” the Indians.
I found myself wanting to learn more about Thanksgiving when I started learning more and more about the history of MY culture. White culture… privilege, supremacy, fragility, identity.
Micah’s grandmother told me a while back, “You take steps towards unity from the truth. It all has to start with the truth.”
Unfortunately, we (white people… yep, us) have done some not neighborly things to our neighbors in the past. And the present. The only way to make those things right is to start with the truth. And in order to start with the truth… you have to know the truth. That comes from you educating yourself. Reading books, articles, blogs, listening to podcasts, audio books, etc.
It starts with you not retelling the stories that aren’t truthful and instead find teachable moments of humility, lament, grief, kindness and reconciliation.
When I googled “true meaning of Thanksgiving” this is what came up…
Thanksgiving Day, annual national holiday in the United States and Canada celebrating the harvest and other blessings of the past year. Americans generally believe that their Thanksgiving is modeled on a 1621 harvest feast shared by the English colonists (Pilgrims) of Plymouth and the Wampanoag people.
Y’all… “Americans generally believe”
OH. MY. GOODNESS. Generally believe!!! Generally! Believe!
That means it’s not true, y’all. What we generally believe is not true. And if I was texting you this right now I would be using A LOT of emojis!
Come on friends, we can do better. But first… we must know better.
A couple of the articles I found insightful were “The Myths of the Thanksgiving Story and the Lasting Damage They Imbue”
and Do American Indians Celebrate Thanksgiving?
I’m passing the baton to you here. Begin knowing better.
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As I was scrolling the google finds I came to this…
“What is the biblical definition of Thanksgiving?
the act of giving thanks; grateful acknowledgment of benefits or favors, especially to God. an expression of thanks, especially to God.”
I love this. This is also truth to me. The acknowledgement that I have been shown favor in so many ways throughout my whole life. That I have a wonderful family. Amazing friends. So many passions. Drive. Tenacity. My faith. My traditions!
I feel good saying those truths. Especially when I hold space for the other truths.
The Girl Scouts For Black Lives declared this month… Know Better November.
I think we have to. It’s our right. Our privilege. Our benefit. Even if it’s ugly. And it hurts. And it taints some great people/places/things that we held to high esteem.
“let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth” 1 John 3:18
So as we start this week… a memorable Thanksgiving from the jump… I encourage you to learn more about the history of the holiday.
And eat snacks. Just do that. Eat snacks. Many of us have scaled down our celebrations so putting together some snacks at the beginning of the week will give you something to celebrate all week.
I have a lot of traditions in my cooking routines. Right on down to the bowls and containers I use to prepare the recipe. I love catching a glimpse of these silver pans in my pantry and knowing those are the two pan I use for Missy’s Snack Mix each and every year. Yes, their disposable. Yes, I reuse them. TRADITION!
And this plastic bowl. THIS ONE SPECIFIC BOWL is Missy’s Puppy Chow bowl.
So, here you are… and here you go… two of my favorite snack recipes that I am oh so thankful to pass on to you.
Missy’s Snack Mix
Ingredients
3 cups of each; wheat, rice and corn Chex cereal
1 bag (14.5oz) Gardetto’s Original Recipe snack mix
3 cups Snyder’s Honey Mustard and Onion Pretzel Pieces
2 cups fried onions (like what you put on green bean casserole!)
3 cups Gardetto’s rye chips
2 cups mixed nuts
2 sticks butter
8 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
2 Tbsp season salt
2 Tbsp Tate Farms Steak Shake (equal parts salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, red pepper flake)
2 Tbsp Garlic Powder
2 Tbsp Onion Powder
2 large foil pans
Directions
- Set oven temperature to 250 degrees.
- Place butter in large foil pan and let melt in oven. While butter is melting, prepare mix.
- In 2nd foil pan combine cereals, snack mix, rye chips, pretzel pieces, fried onions and nuts.
- Once butter is melted, add in Worcestershire sauce and all powder seasonings. Stir until combined.
- Now, gradually add dry snack mix from foil pan #2 to the buttery mixture in foil pan #1. Using gloved hands, tongues, spoons… whatever you want to make sure all dry mix gets covered in the buttery mixture.
- Place foil pan full of coated mixture into the oven. Bake at 250 for one hour, STIRRING EVERY 15 MINUTES.
- Set your timer for 15 minutes and stir every 15 minutes for one hour!!!
- Place paper towels on a large flat surface. Once mix is done baking pour it onto the paper toweled surface and let cool 20 minutes.
- Store in an air tight container like large ziplok bags or sealed bowls.
- Enjoy!!! Snack mix will stay fresh up to 2 weeks.
Apparently my website only allows for one recipe card per blog. Weird. So, we improvise for Missy’s Puppy Chow!
Print
Missy's Puppy Chow Ingredients
9 cups rice Chex cereal
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips
4 Tbsp butter
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups powdered sugar
one large bowl
one large clean trash bag (I promise, a trash bag works best!)
Missy's puppy chow Directions
- Place Chex cereal in a large bowl.
- In a microwaveable bowl, combine peanut butter, chocolate chips and butter. Microwave in 30 second intervals. Stirring in between each interval until completely melted and combined. Stir in vanilla extract.
- Pour chocolate mixture over cereal and gently stir until all cereal is evenly coated. Trust the process… they will eventually all be covered!
- Place 2 cups of powdered sugar in large trash bag.
- Place coated cereal mixture in trash bag with powdered sugar. Secure opening with a knot and shake!!!!! This will get powdered sugar on each and every chocolately cereal piece!
- Place wax paper on a large flat surface.
- Pour puppy chow mixture onto wax paper. Settle into one layer and let cool for 10 minutes.
- Enjoy!!! Store in an air tight container like a zip lok bag or sealed bowl. Mix will stay fresh up to 2 weeks.
Happy Sunday, friends. And Happy Snacksgiving!
