I’m not sure why but lately I’ve been eating my lunch at 10:30 in the morning. This, of course, leaves me with no lunch and really, really hungry by dinner. I’ve tried some granola bars or other snacks to keep the hunger at bay so I can eat lunch at lunch, but they just don’t work great. I use to keep bags of tail mix in my drawer at work, but then I end up eating half the bag which I don’t mind, but it’s not the best option, so I decided to make my own trail mix and portion it out so I just have a snack and not a meal.

When I did some reading on this, a quarter cup is considered one serving. I looked at my measuring cup and realized that was not going to work. It’s the granola bar problem – one “serving” isn’t enough to keep me until lunch and it barely touches the hunger pangs.  I decided to go for half a cup. More than one serving, but still small enough to count as a snack.

We have a few new grocery stores here and they all have good bulk sections, so early Sunday morning I headed to the closest one and kept my fingers crossed that it wasn’t crowded. I picked up a good amount of nuts, dried fruit and dark chocolate chips. Once home I ended up making two different versions of the trail mix.

Version 1 (makes 11 1/2 cup portions):

• 2 cups dry roasted cashews
• 2 cups whole almonds
• 1 cup goldfish pretzels (I had them on hand)
• 2/3 cup dried cranberries
• 2/3 cup banana chip
• 1/2 cup dark chocolate chips

Version 2:

• 1 cup dry roasted cashews
• 1 cup whole almonds
• 1/2 cup dark chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup sesame seeds
• 2/3 cup dried tropical fruit mix

This isn’t anything fancy but if it works its onto homemade granola next!