trail mix Archives • Even Curiouser

This post is part of Snack It To Me – recipes for my favorite snack mixes. The posts are: Fairy Berry Gluten-Free Trail Mix, Sour Patched Gluten-Free Trail Mix, Cherry Cordial Gluten-Free Snack Mix, Mango Lassi Trail Mix, Apricocious Gluten-Free Trail Mix, Raisinably Delicious Snack Mix, Happy Endings Trail Mix, My go-to prepared snacks.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is Snack mix number 5.

A little bit of Apricot in my life,
A little bit of Almonds by my side.
A little bit of Chocolate’s all I need,
A little bit of mixing’s what I see.
A little bit of fruit dried in the sun,
A little bit of munching all night long.
A little bit of trail mix here I am,
A little bit of you makes me your fan!
Snack mix number five.

It has long been public knowledge that I have terrible taste in music. You are lucky there wasn’t a Backstreet Boys song that worked here, because then I might have tried to re-write the whole song and not just the chorus that I am sure is now stuck in your head. (It’s been in my head since I wrote “Snack mix number 5 is here.”)

Apricots are a persnickety fruit. I have bought them one too many times at the grocery store, excited because they are finally in season, only to get home and be disappointed because they are mealy or, even worse, bland. You know the moment when you take a bite and you have the heartbreaking realization that the fruit tastes like a shadow of itself? Yeah. I really hate that.

Which is why dried fruit is great. All the delicious apricot-y goodness is concentrated into a little pocket of joy. Add some almonds and a wee bit of white chocolate for good measure and you, my friend, will not be hangry when you get stuck on the CTA when they are rerouting your communte and messing with your dinner schedule. Instead, you will queue up an episode of Doctor Who and munch away, pleased with yourself for being a grownup and thinking a head. (You don’t need to tell anyone that you forgot that it was buried in the depths of your purse, your secret is safe with me).

Someday soon this flavor combo might be reincarnated as a cookie. Or a muffin. But for now, instant gratification is what it’s all about.

Apricocious Snack Mix (A gluten-free trail mix)

Recipe Type: Snack

Author: Mary Fran Wiley

Prep time: 5 mins

Total time: 5 mins

Serves: 4

No volume measurements are here because these are meant to be imprecise and easy. Either add each ingredient to the same bowl while it is on your kitchen scale, or just go ahead and wing it. With these ingredients you can’t go wrong.

Ingredients

150 grams (3 handfulls) dried apricots
150 grams (2 handfulls) almonds (I used blanched, but you can use roasted and salted here for a sweet & salty take on this mix)
75 grams (really this is how much you want – i wanted one piece of chocolate for every 2-3 apricots) white chocolate callets or chips

Instructions

Place a medium mixing bowl on a kitchen scale and tare (zero) it.
Add each ingredient, weighing as you go. This recipe doesn’t need you to measure them out first.
Mix to combine.
Store in an air-tight container for up to one month.

3.2.1337

This post is part of Snack It To Me – recipes for my favorite snack mixes. The posts are: Fairy Berry Gluten-Free Trail Mix, Sour Patched Gluten-Free Trail Mix, Cherry Cordial Gluten-Free Snack Mix, Mango Lassi Trail Mix, Apricocious Trail Mix, Raisinably Delicious Snack Mix, Happy Endings Trail Mix, My go-to prepared snacks.

After an interruption for surgery involving my spine, Snack It To Me is back. And it is back in a big way.

I transferred to U of I as a junior, and was on my third college. (Apparently fashion design classes do not transfer to other schools as they do not apply to real world skills, so I went to community college to cram in some lost credit hours). I was a junior living in a dorm filled almost entirely with freshmen and the rest were either RAs or seniors who would be graduating in December.

Transfer student orientation was miserable, and none of my high school friends had gone to UIUC. And except for a cousin, I was on my own. And those first few days on campus were rough. Ugly cry yourself to sleep rough.

But then I met Sid.

Somehow, despite radically different cultures and polar opposite favorite hobbies, we became fast friends. He eventually worked his way to BFF status, and is still one of my first calls when I have big news (even if we live half a world apart now).

Sid is the reason this recipe exists.

Food was always central to our friendship. It started with grabbing dinner in the dining hall together when we could. Lunches on campus when we could squeeze them in. And two years of my home-cooked Sunday dinners when we both moved out of the dorms. Some weeks it was the only time our schedules worked out for us to see each other.

We have learned a lot from each other over the course of our friendship. I dragged him to his first American football game (we lost) and made him sit and watch the Bears in the Super Bowl. I fed him his first Irish soda bread and my mom’s famous tomato and rice soup.

He is the one who introduced me to Indian food (he also introduced me to Korean and Middle Eastern cuisine), something I probably never would have tried on my own. He is the one who talked me into trying new things every time we would go to one of the many curry places on campus. The one who got me to try a mango lassi the first time.

A lassi is a yogurt and mango dring that is creamy and just sweet enough. For me, it was love at first sip. (Joy the Baker has a recipe for a mint and cumin lassi that looks out of this world).

With that, I give to you Mango Lassi Trail Mix. The idea for this mix is, sadly, not all my own. I had a similar combination from Graze (more about them in another post), and was thoroughly disappointed when they discontinued it. So, I just had to make my own.

Gluten-Free Mango Lassi Trail Mix

Recipe Type: Snack

Author: Mary Fran Wiley

Mangoes and yogurt are a match made in heaven.

Ingredients

75 grams roasted sunflower seeds (a good handful and a half)
50 grams yogurt covered nuts (about 30 yogurt covered almonds were used in the photographed version)
50 grams dried mango (chunks are best, but the flatter kind kan be roughly chopped into strips, as it is here)

Instructions

In a large mixing bowl, combine all ingredients. Adjust amounts to suit your taste – I really love yogurt covered anything, you might really love mango. Take this and make it your own.
Store in a sealed container for up to one month.

3.2.1337

Tag: trail mix

Snack it to me: Apricocious Snack Mix

Snack it to me: Mango Lassi Trail Mix