On the road.

Life = BUSY!!!

Apologies for the lack of posting this weekend. I actually am quite behind on posts, so I'm going to be blogging every day this week. Hooray!

If you didn't get a chance to read my previous post with my special guest...GO!

And once you're done, come back and read the rest of this one :). So demanding for a Monday, I know.

My last themed week focused on late night snacking. Well, today, I'm going to focus on travel snacks. Because we all know that getting any sort of food on a flight is a lost cause. Although I would like to mention that I got some complimentary baked pita chips! But besides that, quite the lost cause.

My stash o' snacks:

Clockwise starting from the top:

• Sunflower seed butter filled dates*
• Almond butter + banana + honey sandwich
• Carrots**
• Dark chocolate
• Individual instant coffee packet
• Walnuts
• Salty mixture***

*For the dates, I just pitted regular dates and scooped in some sunflower seed butter. Such a sweet and satisfying snack!

**I ended up forgetting to take the carrots with me because I left them in the fridge. Fail.

***The salty mixture is my mom's recipe. I documented her making it the other day, because I thought some of you guys would be interested in it! Indian salty mixtures are typically fried, but my mom's version is actually a lot healthier!

She called this the secret ingredient:

Asafoetida powder-- this is available at any Asian/Indian store.

Other secret ingredients:

Curry leaves and spicy red chili peppers.

To make the mixture, start off by heating 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil in a large pot, and add 1 tablespoon cumin seeds, 2 teaspoons mustard seeds, curry leaves, red chilis, and asafoetida powder. Heat over medium-low until the seeds begin to splutter. 

Then add the puffed rice. For this mixture, we used puffed basmati rice (available at any Asian/Indian store), but you could use puffed brown rice (available at Sprouts/Sunflower Market) or even Rice Krispies.

For other mix-ins, the possibilities are endless!! This mixture included roasted & salted peas, dried cranberries, and peanuts.

The roasted, salted peas are available at Sprouts/Sunflower Market as well.

Combine the mix-ins and desired amount of salt in the pot with the puffed rice and stir, stir, stir to ensure the puffed rice doesn't burn.

Easy, right?! 

Oh, and about the coffee. I'm sure you know by now that coffee has some strange effects on my body!! Luckily, I didn't end up using that packet...despite the fact that I woke up at 4:30AM AZ time. Time to go take a nap. Or go workout. I can't decide.