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.