My grandmother did not exactly pass this recipe down to me, and because of an extremely unfortunate series of events – into which it would be unseemly of me to delve in such a forum – her recipe books are not, to my knowledge, knocking around in the bottom of anyone’s cupboards. Nuts and bolts was (and I use the singular deliberately), however, a family gathering staple, and I did once see her making it.
I reproduce it here to preserve something of the flavour of those times my family spent gutsing themselves on Nuts and Bolts.
Nuts and bolts
Ingredients
Nutri grain
Nuts – definitely peanuts, and possibly for the more fancy occasions mixed nuts such as walnuts, the dreaded brazil nuts (does anyone ever eat them), almonds and the odd hazel nut.
Curry powder. This would be keens for sure. A teaspoon or two depending on how fresh or stale it is.
I do not remember seeing it, but I imagine it is not entirely unheard of to add a packet of french onion soup to the mix. Which makes me wonder: has anyone ever had a packet of french onion soup actually added to hot water and taken as soup?
Method
Mix all the ingredients in a bowl. I suspect you would need to add a bit of oil to make sure the coating sticks to the nutri grain and the nuts.
Spread mix out on an oven tray (probably sprayed with pure and simple).
Bake in the oven. How long and at what temperature? No idea, but it wouldn’t be too hard to work it out. Moderate oven would be safest I suppose. No longer than fifteen minutes, no less than five.
Serve in brown fake-thatch bowls such as used to be given out with the packets of chips in pubs. You may wish to lay a serviette out in the bowl before scooping the nuts and bolts in. For Christmas, obviously the serviettes would be green or red and possibly be edged with holly or snowmen or both.
Best eaten in large handfuls.
Yes, I eat the brazil nuts. And I’m sure we had the French Onion soup as soup as well as an additive. But I was brought up by string-savers.
Omigod that sounds disgusting…
My Gold Coast sister-in-law makes a dip out of french onion soup, sour cream and philly cheese, I think, with a bit of parsley stirred through. Then she hollows out a cob loaf and fills the loaf with dip, scattering the torn up pieces of white bread from the centre of the loaf around the outside. We have it every Christmas.
Oh god, doesn’t that phrase ‘every Christmas’ make your heart sink? This is definitely connected with 1P3C’s earlier post about ‘ThirdCat’s salad’. Every Christmas I wonder about whether the rest of the family is sick to death of my trifle, or wishes I would just make it with sponge cake and sherry and tinned peaches instead of Amaretti macaroons and kirsch and tricky syllabub and million-dollar raspberries.
I heart brazil nuts.
Oh god, doesn’t that phrase ‘every Christmas’ make your heart sink? This is definitely connected with 1P3C’s earlier post about ‘ThirdCat’s salad’. Every Christmas I wonder about whether the rest of the family is sick to death of my trifle, or wishes I would just make it with sponge cake and sherry and tinned peaches instead of Amaretti macaroons and kirsch and tricky syllabub and million-dollar raspberries.
I heart brazil nuts.
I\’m sorry I said that about brazil nuts now. But they do always seem to be left in the bottom of the bowl at the end of the party.
Do you know I was thinking about that philly cheese in the cob bread as I was writing this post. It was never at my family things, but I have been at several events where it was featured, and it totally rocks. Topped only by the philly cheese and chilli sauce.
PC, the test still is: is there any left?
The only thing that depresses me more than the phrase “every Christmas” is seeing the shops trot out their Christmas decorations at the end of September every year. *Sigh* Watching the hot cross bun machine grind into life on January 7 is also bad, but not quite so wrist-slashingly horrible as the knowledge that Christmas is coming.
Speaking of cob loaf dippy things, I stole the recipe for a rather good one from an unsuspecting woman at a barbecue a few months ago. It also contained a packet of otherwise inedible soup. I forgot to write down the ingredients, though. From memory, it had a large tub of sour cream, a box packet of frozen spinach (preferably finely chopped and preferably thawed), a can of water chestnuts (chopped, and yes, removed from the can), a packet of spring vegetable soup and a finely chopped red onion. There may also have been cream cheese, but I can’t remember. It sounds like hell, I know, but it was strangely tasty. You have to leave it to stand for a few hours before you put it in the cob loaf, though; otherwise the spring vegetables are gritty.
Oh, yes, the frozen spinach and sour cream variation. I have also had that. This puts me in mind of a most excellent blog post for which I hope to find the motivation and energy very soon.
there r 2 diffrent ways of making nuts and bolts and this is the one that i am NOT looking for
i like the nuts and bolts with french fries and nutrigrian. i think this one tatse a bit wierd.