My 15 year old nephew texted me at 10 pm and said, “Problem.” with a photo of an empty food container. That was the fifth batch of this mix I have dropped off in their driveway in two months. To say this is a popular, requested staple around here is putting it lightly. The secret is this sauce.

I’m not sure what makes a food, football food. But if sports were happening, this is exactly what I would be setting out. Perhaps it’s the golden color but this just screams fall to me. It would make a great homemade gift this fall too! It’s hard to say what we are even going to be doing this week, much less a whole season away. BUT JUST KNOW THIS IS PERFECT ALL YEAR ROUND AND PLEASE JUST MAKE THIS CHIPOTLE CHEX MIX.

Am I the only one who wants less stuff and instead is happier with simpler things? I think it’s so sweet when someone drops off a homemade dessert or dish! Not only did it mean they were thinking of you, they took time (which is literally priceless and so valued!) to give you something. Anyway, homemade chipotle Chex mix is a go-to, tasty gift that everyone will love.

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Chipotle Chex Mix

This is now a signature recipe for me makes everyone happy! It's super easy to make, basically no prep time and the result is the best Chex mix you'd ever had. P.S. Add in goldfish for a little extra flavor, don't knock it till you try it!

Course Snack

Prep Time 10 minutes

Cook Time 1 hour

Ingredients

• 2 Cups Wheat Chex Cereal
• 2 Cups Corn Chex Cereal
• 2 Cups Pretzels
• 2 Cups Sourdough Chips
• 2 Cups Salted Peanuts
• 2 Cups Goldfish
• 1 Bottle Chipotle Tabasco Sauce
• 8 TBSP Butter
• 2 TBSP Garlic Powder
• 2 TBSP Worcester Sauce
• 2 TBSP Brown Sugar
• 1 TBSP Maldon Salt Flakes (or more depending on your preference)

Instructions

• Preheat the oven to 300F
• Combine cereal, pretzels, peanuts and sourdough chips into a bowl.
• Combine all other ingredients in a bowl and microwave for one minute. Mix, stir and microwave one minute more, or until the butter is melted.
• Pour half of the mixture over the dry ingredients and thoroughly mix with your hands. Pour the other half and mix again.
• Line a large cookie sheet with parchment paper and place the mixture on top.
• Bake for 60-90 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes. Let cool.

  Mix will stay fresh in an airtight container for about a week.

Like this recipe? Pin it! Pinning helps me grow and be able to make other things like Brown Butter Cherry Chocolate Chip Cookies and 4 Ingredient Breakfast Cookies.

The post Your New Snack Obsession: Chipotle Chex Mix appeared first on Honestly Relatable.

If you want to see more of my hosting ideas or what these items look like in action, check out the W(h)ine about Life party with all of the below in action!

The Staples

Fruits – I always have pitted dates from Trader Joe’s or mejool dates from Aldis on hand. I prefer the taste of the mejool dates but they have the pits in them so it’s really not ideal to eat in front of people. Red grapes go perfectly with any cheese and I find tend to keep longer in my fridge (that could just be my imagination). Ideally blackberries or some type of berry is always ready to go. I store them in these in my crisper. I also always have dried cherries on hand!

Cured Meats – Aldi has this amazing spicy dried meat that I snack on while preparing this spread. Seasonally they also have some other ones (in winter they had black truffle) and are always worth stocking up on. Your classics like salami, proscuitto and others are always safe bets! I also love how long these last. I always double wrap in this to help help it from drying out.

Crackers – ALL OF THEM. No, really. I pretty much am always buying a box of really nice crackers. The great thing is that they pretty much go with anything. My favorite tend to be sourdough based or have rosemary.

Dips – Sometimes when I am really on top of my game I make homemade taziki sauce and I feel like nothing can bring me down. Other times I rely on the reduced-guilt Spinach and Kale Greek Yogurt Dip. No one knows it’s got kale in it and it is so good. Trader Joe’s also has a really good Everything But the Bagel dip as well. I really prefer to do a yogurt based dip for this sort of thing as I think it looks better and tends to bring in some acidity to the spread if you’re a little heavier on the meats.

Veggies – I don’t know where English Cucumbers have been all my life but I am here for it. I love them so much I will eat them with just salt and freshly cracked pepper on them. Carrots always win and if you want to really be healthy celery, but I only save whatever is left if I am using it for a soup.

Olives – This is something that looks great but I feel like is very divisive. Trader Joe’s has a great bag of marinated, assorted olives that are $1.99. They pretty much never expire and add brightness to any platter!

Drinks

I always, always have champagne chilling in the fridge. Veuve Clicquot all the way, nothing less. For other people I like to have a dry rose ready to go and typically have one other type of wine, but that’s typically whatever someone has brought over and we haven’t opened. I like to have a sparkling, dry and a wild card wine on hand. For those that want a cocktail I like to be able to offer a Moscow Mule or a vodka based drink.

My Favorite Plates and Silverware for Easy Clean Up

I also absolutely love this impromptu hosting food because the don’t require a ton of clean up or prep. I discovered these amazing disposable plates when I was wedding planning and well, I ordered about 500 of them. So I’ve slowly been digging my way out of my plate hole by using them for entertaining. When I run out of them I genuinely will reorder them because they always, always get compliments and do not feel cheap! I also use this gold silverware that matches the plates perfectly. They have a great feel and are super affordable!

Make fun of me for my emergency cheese and other stuff, but you are never going to go hungry when you are at my house. I may because of my refusal to use my impromptu hosting food to feed myself but you will never be hungry. Have fun on your next grocery run as you stock up!

The post The Food I Always Have on Hand for Impromptu Hosting appeared first on Honestly Relatable.

Yes, the summer and fall makes us all want to be extra social, but I actually think that winter is perfecting for hosting a dinner party. Think about it! Cozy foods, candlelight dinners, eating too many carbs, being inside and warm and cozy instead of outside in the blah weather weather. Plus winter tablescape decor I think is everywhere when you are on Pinterest because we all want to look at something pretty. (That also could just be my feed.)

If you want to see other dinner parties and entertaining posts, click here, here and here.

Creating the Atmosphere

For this Sunday dinner I wanted it to have warmth, intimacy and encourage deep conversation. I have a very specific vision for this and I knew that I didn’t want to have to spend long on the decor so I rented items from Endless Treasures here in Wichita. (Not sponsored, I just love them.)

I cannot say enough good about Endless Treasures! I love their team but I love their attention to detail. They knew exactly what I wanted and needed and went from there! I rented the table, chairs and place-settings and it was the best money I’ve spent. They even had winter tablescape inspiration and packages if you didn’t want to have to think about what you wanted to rent. I was able to focus on setting the table and bringing my vision to life and instead of sourcing items and buying things like candles. They had it all delivered to me exactly on time and made hosting a breeze.

I also curated this playlist that helped encourage the cozy, intimate vibe.

Setting the Table

I love winter for the amount of natural elements that you can have in a tablescape. These greens (in the photos) were incredibly cheap but also supplemented by a nice walk and picking up fallen branches and natural elements. I think that when you look at winter tablescape inspiration on Pinterest, you can see that no matter where you are in the country, your decor can be incredibly cheap.

I created the dinner menu in Canva which was a great way to stop everyone from asking what each item was, and if they had a dietary restrictions. Everything is listed under that dish so one had to disclose any sort of dietary information if they weren’t comfortable. I highly recommend this if you are the entertainer AND the cook as little questions like that can get tiresome quickly.

The Menu

When you are solo-hosting a dinner party It’s really helpful to have a mix of cool and warm dishes so you don’t spend all your time in the kitchen. The theme was Greek food for this evening. Here’s what the menu was:

• Layered Hummus
• Rosemary Carrots
• Balsamic Green Beans with Feta and Pine Nuts
• Greek Meatballs (Honestly I just made up the recipe)
• Orzo Salad (Also made up this recipe)
• Fresh Baklava
  
  (Also you can tell I got busy in the kitchen when people arrived because I only have a photo of one dish, the hummus.)

Other Tips

• I spend a lot of time curating a guest list. While all of these guests were close friends of mine, I don’t intermix friends from work or personal life unless the circumstances are truly extraordinary. If you have half and half the room naturally divides and has less of a community feel and more of a small-talk feel which is most likely the opposite of what you want.
• If you want to go really detailed, you can provide a small card at the place-setting with commonalities of the people sitting next to each other. It helps ease some of the small-talk and create genuine conversations!

Tag me when you host your dinner party if you get an inspiration from this post. I’m starting to blog more about my entertaining and I hope that you are enjoying it as much as I am. Feel free to let me know if you want me to do a certain theme or answer any questions.

The post A Sunday to Give Back… My Sunday Dinner Party and Entertaining Tips appeared first on Honestly Relatable.