A Swede in the kitchen

Some of us keeps these little bags of snacks in a drawer at work or in the house.

I am not much of a snack person, but I do admit, that I need to have a “mellanmål” (“in between meal”) once or twice a day. Or at least one around 9 or 10 in the morning. We get up just after 5am every day. On weekdays I eat breakfast at 5.30am. It is such a routine that I have a hard time during the weekends. Sleeping in means getting up around 7am or so.

My best solution is always to have a hardboiled egg in my bag, but if the “snack nerve” screams, one needs to be prepared. And being a new year and all, I made sure to make a new batch of my favorite trail mix. This time I dried berries and fruits for it as well. It is a little overkill but I like doing it. I know there will not be any sugar or salt added, no preservatives and chemicals. Besides what was on the berries when I bought them. I should say. It is in the middle of the winter and I am able to buy fresh strawberries, raspberries and blueberries. I know that is so fortunate. Not everybody has that luxury.

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Trail mix.

There really is no recipe for making a trail mix. You just mix a whole bunch of dry ingredients such as nuts, seeds, dried fruits and dried berries. You can add anything in any amount. But this is what I usually do it.

Mix;

1 part Hazelnuts

1 part Almonds

1 part Pecan nuts

1 part Pistachio nuts

1 part Cashew nuts

1 part Sunflower seeds

1 part dried Mango

1 part dried Cranberries

1/2 part dried Strawberries

1/2 part dried Raspberries

1/2 part dried Blueberries

Either you buy the dried fruits and berries or you dry them your self.

I am lucky enough to have a food dehydrator. It takes about 1 1/2 day to dry the berries in this. It is really an easy and non messy way but it takes very long. Sometimes I don’t have patience to wait that long. If you don’t have a dehydrator, you can just dry the berries in the oven. It works equally good.

You need 1 parchment paper lined cookie sheet for the  sliced berries or fruit.

If you dry raspberries and strawberries, it takes about 3 hours on 150F (70-75C). Half way through, turn them over so that they dry equally on each side.

This isn’t something you do in a hurry. You need to plan ahead. The thicker the slices the longer it takes.

You concentrate the taste if you dry things. I think that it gets a little bit more sour or tart. I like that. Some people sprinkle some powdered sugar over the fruit, but that kind of defeats the purpose. You can just as well buy it in the store then, since most dried fruit has added sugar on them.

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My food dehydrator is great. It is a little slow, but the fruit and berries comes out very good.

I usually use all 5 layers and dry a bunch of different fruits and berries in “one shot”

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Drying the fruit and berries in the oven is so much faster. It still takes many hours. You can’t have too high heat. You just want to extract the moisture, not cook them.

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I am bringing my bag of new trail mix to work tomorrow.

The only problem now, will be to not finish it up too fast.

Enjoy!!!