Road Trippin'

During the summer, Jerry and I seem to find ourselves in the car for extended periods of time quite often. For the longer trips (2 hours or more), I like to pack snacks. The problem with packing snacks is that we're gigantic fat kids who both have a mild case of ADHD.

Sitting for extended periods of time is not something that is easy for either one us. At one time, I could happily sit on my ass for hours, watching bad reality tv marathons (you know the Housewives of New Jersey has sucked you in too!). But not anymore. And being in the car is even worse! What are we suppose to do for 3 to 4 hours at a time? Talk to each other?! Yeah. Sure.

Instead, we eat. We eat well past the point of being full. We eat until we complain about eating....and then we eat some more. We put the bag of snacks "far away" in the backseat. Only for me to climb over to retrieve the forbidden bag less then an hour later.

For one of our road trips to Virginia, I packed:

• 2 sandwiches (one of each of us)
• TJ's reduced guilt popcorn
• TJ's sweet and salty trail mix (so good)
• TJ's carmel corn (can you tell I have a Trader Joe's obsession?)
• Dried snap peas
• Box of black licorice (for Jerry)
• Kashi granola bars
• Reduced sugar dark chocolate (which I didn't realize had the ingredient that makes you crap your pants until I had already eaten half the bar)
• Fruit leathers

We seriously had to cut ourselves off. Especially me! While Jerry just feels gross and bloated, I end up with a 300(!) blood sugar because I can only take so much insulin to cover 8 straight hours of eating!

For a recent road trip, I planned things out much better. Instead of large bags of food, I brought individual bags of snacks and opted for even more healthy treats that 1) weren't be as appealing and 2) wouldn't severely impact my blood sugar. These treats include:

• Fiberful Fruit Leathers
• TJ's snack-sized bag of kettle corn
• Kashi granola bars
• 2 types of seaweed snacks (for Jerry)
• Baby carrots (good for the ol' blood sugar)
• Trail Mix Snack Cookies (need something naughty)
  

Why bring snacks at all, you might ask? Because you really can't call it a road trip without snacks. Seriously. Check wikipedia. It's there. Because of my expert snack packing, Jerry and I were able to control ourselves, thus giving us more room to be disgusting oinkers and gorge ourselves for the rest of the weekend. Awesome.

Trail Mix "Cookies"

by Bonnie Graham

Cook Time: 14 - 16 minutes

Keywords: bake breakfast snack vegetarian coconut oil nuts oats

6029096

Ingredients (12 large cookies)

• 1 c oat flour
• 1/2 c whole wheat pastry flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp cinnamon (or ¼ tsp freshly grated nutmeg)
• ¼ tsp sea salt
• 2 packets Truvia (or 4 tsp sugar)
• 1 ½ tbsp ground chia seeds (or 2 tbsp flax meal)
• ¼ c unsweetened shredded coconut
• 3 tbsp coconut oil
• ¼ c maple syrup
• 1 – 1½ tsp pure vanilla extract
• ½ c apple sauce
• 1/3 c almonds, lightly chopped
• ¼ cup sunflower seeds
• ¼ cup pumpkin seeds
• ¼ c dried cranberries or other dried fruit

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line baking sheet with parchment paper.

2. In a blender, food processor, or magic bullet, grind oats into a flour followed by grinding chia seeds (or flax seeds).

3. Add all dry ingredients to a bowl, with the exception of the coconut, seeds, and nuts, and mix to combine.

4. Add all wet ingredients to the bowl. Mix well to combine.

5. Add coconut, nuts, seeds, cats.....just wanted to see if you were paying attention...to the bowl.

6. Scoop hefty sized scoops of dough and place them on your baking sheet. Bake for 14 - 16 minutes or until lightly browned.

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