Travel Care Package & Trail Mix

A very dear friend of mine is starting on a month long trip tomorrow, which will include incredibly long travel time. As a gift for her,  I put together a little care package of bandaids, SPF chapstick, moist wipes, pens, post its, nail file and hand sanitizer in a terribly cute clutch purse. I also made her a large bag of delicious trail mix for the trip. Hopefully, they'll let her take it on the plane. I probably should have investigated that prior to making it but too late.

Trail mixes from the grocery store are usually expensive and full of stuff one may or may not enjoy eating.  The joy of making it for myself, besides the 'Yay! I did it!" feeling, is that I can decide what I want to put in it.

So, on the hottest day yet this season, I decide to turn on the oven to 350 and make trail mix. Unfortunately, I was also attempting to multi-task. Bad idea. I neglected to remember that when toasting the nuts, one must remember to line the cookie sheet with parchment. Fortunately, all the nuts came up off the cookie sheet but it did take some coaxing on my part. At this point in the process, the house smelled beautifully of cinnamon and maple sugar and nuts. More a wintery scent but whatever. I also realized at this point that I had forgotten to add the oats to the nut mix before toasting so I popped them in the oven on the cookie sheet for a few minutes. Too many minutes as it turned out. The next time I put my head in the kitchen, there was smoke pouring out of the oven. Oops.

By the time hubby came home, the delightful wintery smell of the house was replaced by burnt oats; not nearly so pleasant. But as usually happens, the trail mix turned out delicious and the kitchen wasn't damaged at all.

Trail Mix (this can be altered in any way to fit one's particular tastes)

1 40oz container of mixed nuts
2  small bags of your favorite nuts
2 cups steel cut oats
1/3 cup maple syrup
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp cayenne pepper
12oz dried pineapple pieces, roughly chopped
12oz dried apricots, roughly chopped
6oz dried cranberries
8oz raisins
1 large bag of M&Ms

Preheat oven to 350. In a very large bowl, mix nuts, oats, maple syrup, cinnamon and cayenne throughly so that the syrup well coats the nuts. Spread nut mixture evenly on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. (ALWAYS line the sheet, trust me) Bake in oven for 7-10 minutes until the nuts are lightly toasted and fragrant.

When the nuts are fully cooled, pour into another very large bowl. Add the dried fruits and M&Ms and mix to evenly distribute everything. Store in ziploc bags and enjoy; or give away as treats.