When I can get cereal for just $.20 or $.30 a box, I stock up. But sometimes my eyes are bigger than my kids’ stomachs. At least when it comes to “healthy” cereals like the yellow box of Cheerios. (The Coco Puffs, mind you, disappear in a single Shabbat.)
Today, I spied five boxes of yellow box Cheerios languishing on the shelves of our basement storage room, so I decided to get creative.
Cheerio Necklaces
First, I handed my six- and two-year olds a string, with tape wrapped around one end and a big knot tied on the other end. Then, I dumped out a pile of Cheerios on the table and let them go to town. My two year-old really suprsied me with her ability to thread the “eye” of the Cheerio with her string.
My 6 year-old especially seemed to enjoy making his necklace and kept working on it until his whole string was filled up.
(Please ignore the post-chag disaster in the background of these pictures.)
Cheerio “Trail Mix”
In addition to eating their necklaces, we also made Cheerio Trail Mix for a snack. The “recipe” couldn’t be easier. Just mix equal part of chocolate chips, raisins and Cheerios.
Guess which of those three ingredients disappeared the fastest?
Do you have any creative uses for your stockpiled cereal? Have you made necklaces, trail mix, breakfast cookies or something else unexpected with Cheerios or some other kind of cereal?
If you have extra Chex, may I recommend Muddy Buddies (known in our family as Puppy Chow):
http://www.chex.com/Recipes/RecipeView.aspx?RecipeId=45860&CategoryId=342
My friend Katie introduced me to Muddy Buddies. My daughter (the chocaholic) LOVES them!
I get Hungry Girl’s newsletter (and boy, I’m really gonna need her help after all those yontif meals!). She uses Fiber One cereal in baked goods and grinds it up to use as breading. I’m sure you could do the same with Cheerios. Or maybe as a substitute for breadcrumbs in recipes? Your kids are adorable!
That’s a great idea, Dodi! Perfect “filler” for meatballs.
I remember as a kid there was Cheerios cookbook. I love the box top torn off 🙂
Here’s the motherlode of Cheerios recipes (about half of them are kosher, I think, the rest have marshmallows in them): http://www.cheerios.com/recipes/
I bread my chicken with mayo and crushed rice krispies (like cornflake crumbs) and bake 350 for 1 1/2 hours – yum
I’ve also made little dolls out of cheerios before but stopped when they got hidden before pesach (string on pipe cleaners and twist into a stick person figure) . . . rrrr