Stress-free study break snacks that won't break the bank

This school year we are featuring recipes from cookbooks located in the UW-Stout Archives Special Collections. The Special Collections are older, more rare, or Stout related books that were originally located in the UW-Stout Library’s main stacks collection. This past year we added a wealth of cookbooks to the special collections, and I scoured the shelves to find new recipes to try that would make cooking from home fun, affordable, and easy.

Calling all Blue Devils! Create some easy and delicious end-of-semester study break snacks from the Better Homes and Gardens Microwave Cookbook, 1976, TX832 .M47 1976. This cookbook provides tips and tricks for cooking and baking time saving recipes with your microwave. Most recipes use just the microwave, or a combo of the microwave, oven, or stovetop. Learning to cook a variety of recipes with a microwave can be a useful skill, especially if you are a college student without ready access to a stovetop or oven. You can still find this cookbook on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Better-Homes-Gardens-Microwave-Cook/dp/0696010356

Look for more fun recipes and cooking tips on the Better Homes and Gardens website: https://www.bhg.com/recipes/

Spiced Honeyed Cider, p. 15

In a 4-cup glass measure cup mix 3 cups apple cider or apple juice, 1 tbsp. honey, ¼ tsp. ground cinnamon, and 1/8 tsp. ground nutmeg. Micro-cook, uncovered, till hot, about 6-7 minutes. Serve in mugs. Dot with butter. Makes 4 (6 ounce) servings.

 

Scotch Crunchies, p. 51

1 6-ounce package butterscotch pieces (1 cup)

1 6-ounce package semi-sweet chocolate pieces or imitation

1 3-ounce can chow mien noodles

1 cup tiny marshmallows or raisins

In large glass bowl place butterscotch and chocolate pieces. Micro-cook, uncovered, till melted, about 2 ½ minutes; stir after each minute. Stir in noodles and marshmallows or raisins. Drop by teaspoon onto waxed paper. Chill, if desired. Makes about 3 dozen.

The spiced honeyed cider and scotch crunchies are just the ticket to warm you up and give you the energy boost you need to keep studying for end-of-semester exams. You can use a variety of ingredients, and cut in half or double batch, to create your own version of these treats. For the cider, I used Pepin Heights apple cider. Instead of separate cinnamon and nutmeg, I used about 1 tsp. Cinnamon Plus spice blend, by Pampered Chef, which includes a variety of spices mixed together, perfect for baking, apple treats, hot drinks, and more. I did not dot my cider with butter. I think you could use as little or as much for spices as you want, and keep or omit the honey, depending on your taste preferences.  

Cider ingredients: Apple Cider, Cinnamon Plus spice blend, honey

For the scotch crunchies, I used a ½ bag of butter scotch chips, a ½ bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips, 1 cup mini-marshmallows, and 1 cup straight pretzels, which I broke in half. I could not find chow mien noodles at the grocery store.  After melting and mixing the ingredients together, I used a muffin scooper to scoop onto a baking sheet layered with parchment paper. This recipe is similar to the “Haystacks” recipe by Betty Crocker. With this recipe, I think you could make as little or as much as you want, and use any combination of sweet and salty treats you like to mix together, such as cereal, Teddy Grahams, or candy, like M&M's. These treats would pair great with the Cheddar Cheesy popcorn recipe we posted last week. Bon Appetit!  

Scotch Crunchie ingredients: marshmallows, chips, pretzels

Lining up the ingredients

Mixing the ingredients and getting ready to scoop onto parchment paper

The finished scotch crunchies

The scotch crunchies pair well with a steaming cup of apple cider!

If you want to try a similar recipe to Scotch Crunchies, but using the stovetop, check out Stout’s Favorites cookbook, 1955, via the Internet Archive:

Unbaked Oatmeal Drop Cookies, p. 26: https://archive.org/details/StoutsFavoritesFirstEdition/page/n27/mode/2up

Try Betty Crocker’s White Chocolate Haystacks, using the microwave, from bettycrocker.com: https://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/white-chocolate-haystacks/d3e902da-efba-4bc6-a669-bed1742f6152

By: Julie Hatfield, Archives Assistant, UW-Stout Archives

Easy Peasy--Cheddar Cheesy Popcorn

The end of fall semester is a rush to finish projects and prepare for final exams. At the same time, much of the outside world is celebrating the holidays with cheerful decorations and decadent treats. 

This cheddar popcorn will help you accomplish the dual purpose of fueling yourself through project stress and treating yourself to something festive.

This recipe comes from The Boy's Cook Book, which was published in 1959 as a specialty cookbook for adolescent boys. It promised its readers that "once word gets around that you can turn out really superior chow, you'll be a hero, and that's no joke!"

 

This modded popcorn recipe starts with a popping a standard pan of popcorn. The book recommended a traditional method of cooking over hot campfire coals, or barring that, a pan on the stovetop. It noted that the popping kernels will "sound like a battery of tiny machine guns." Since we knew that our popcorn was about to receive a heavy dose of butter and cheese, we opted to airpop our batch. 

Like many twentieth century recipe books, The Boy's Cookbook did not denote how much of each ingredient to use. Instead, it gave really basic instructions. 

We made our best guesses on the amounts for melted butter and shredded cheddar, and we tossed them quickly on the hot popcorn to ensure even melting. In the end, we definitely overdid it with the butter in our quest to assist with melting the shredded cheddar. Luckily, that problem is easily resolved by adding additional hot popcorn. We ended up popping an additional batch, and then the cheese and butter toppings were balanced just right.

In the end, we were rewarded with a melty, savory treat that could easily fuel a late night study session or make the latest streaming holiday movie feel just that much more festive. If you're looking for a simple and festive pick me up, this snack will definitely do the trick.