Autumn Spiced Trail Mix

Long time, no see my blog friends!

I know, I've been bad. To be honest, blogging has been the furthest thing from my mind for the last week. I'm simply enjoying being on vacation. When most people hear that I don't work, I think they imagine me parked on couch, hand in a bucket of chicken wings, watching General Hospital. What do I do all day? They wonder aloud. I've long since grown tired of people asking me if I'm bored and when I'm going back to work. Maybe some housewives are bored and don't do much around the house, but that's not me. I'm on my feet all day. First of all, I have the house and everything that owning a house entails. The cleaning and the yard work. I also run, 4-5 days a week. There's my blog. I spend a surprising amount of time planning posts, choosing recipes to feature, and photography for the accompanying post. There's couponing, which also takes a couple of hours a week between cutting, organizing, planning lists, and carrying out the shopping. There's my pups, always in need of attention, affection, and new smells from the yard. There's cooking. And baking. Laundry. Zumba. My point- at home, there's always something.

Not so when you are on vacation. My days have consisted of rolling out of bed in the morning for a leisurely run, followed by dips in the hot tub. Afternoon naps, followed by a couple of hours of reading. Dinners split between my parent's comfort food, and restaurants the hubby and I can only reminisce about home in Kentucky. Evenings winding down with wine and more reading. I've hardly glanced at Facebook, checked my email once a day, and not pinned a damn thing. And I'm loving it.

So what am I doing here, you ask? Well, I will admit I've been asked once or twice when in the world I was going to update the blog. I can only laugh and change the subject so many times. So I've got a recipe. While this is not the first thing I've made while I've been here, it has been one of my favorites. After completing the trail mix, I'd advise allowing the trail mix to sit overnight to allow the flavors to meld. I tasted the mix when it came right out of the oven and I thought it was ruined, it tasted that gross. I went ahead and completed the trail mix, and tried it about 4 hours later. It already tasted 100% better. I tried it again this morning however, and it's 100% better than yesterday. I think this one just needs time to develop the flavor. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

1 cup raw pecans
1/2 cup raw almonds
1/2 cup raw cashews
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 ginger
1/8 tsp nutmeg
pinch of cloves
pinch of salt
1/4 cup dried cranberries
1/4 cup crystallized ginger sliced, chopped

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350º. Lightly coat a cookie sheet with cooking spray.
2. Spread pecans, almonds, and cashews on cookie sheet in a single layer. Roast in oven for 10 minutes, stirring once halfway through. Pour nuts into a large mixing bowl, and set aside. Turn oven down to 300º.
3. In a small sauce pan, combine maple syrup through salt. Bring to a gentle rolling boil, stirring constantly. Remove from heat, and pour syrup mixture into mixing bowl. Stir until thoroughly coated. Re-spread nut mixture onto cookie sheet. Bake in oven 25-30 minutes, or until glaze begins to harden. Spread mixture onto a piece of greased parchment paper to cool.
4. When mixture is cool add back to mixing bowl. Add cranberries and ginger to the bowl, toss to combine. Pour trail mix into an airtight container, and allow to sit for 24 hours before consumption.

Recipe courtesy of Southern Living.