Sometimes it just works out perfectly.

I was sitting on the couch flipping back and forth between The Biggest Loser and The X Factor (wow, by the way!) and I was thinking through the dinner I had just made. Something just wasn't quite right with it. I tried a new recipe - Roasted Acorn Squash stuffed with Quinoa Mushroom Pilaf. Sounds good, doesn't it? And it was good. But... something was missing and it tasted a bit flat. It has promise, it simply needs some more help. Really what I was thinking about while I was sitting on the couch was "were the leftovers really worth heating up and eating?" I just wasn't feeling it. What I really wanted was something crunchy and, dare I say? sweet. (I blame this on my friend Carol, by the way. We had just recently had a long conversation about how I don't like sweet things. I always pass up dessert in favour of more dinner. Sweet just isn't my thing. I think talking about sweet stuff for so long triggered something inside.) Anyways, I walked around the kitchen praying there was something hidden in a cupboard that I had forgotten about, even though I really knew there wasn't going to be anything there. I had done a bunch of Christmas cookie baking and it was all sitting on the table on the cooling racks, but none of it was vegan and not even close to healthy.

Come on!! There HAS to be something in this house that will fit the bill!

I remembered that earlier in the day I was thinking of making some homemade granola to have on hand for a snack, so I pulled out a couple of my favourite vegan cookbooks and started looking for the perfect granola recipe. After some comparing, I found the one I wanted in Alicia Silverstone's book, "The Kind Diet". I started pulling out ingredients and putting them on the table. And then... I have no oats. How is that even possible?? I always have a spare bag of oats in the pantry. Ugh. Back to the drawing board.

I'm starting to think I will give up on the sweet part and just go for crunchy. When I was making dinner I toasted up some raw pumpkin seeds and once they started popping, they smelled soooooooo goood! Out came the pumpkin seeds. Wait. There are some raw sunflower seeds in the cupboard too. Ooooooo, and some raw almonds. And peanuts. I'm feeling a toasty, crunchy trail mix coming on. I pulled out the frying pan, gave it a VERY light spray of Safflower oil and dumped the seeds and nuts in. There is nothing like the smell of toasting nuts... ahhhhh.

When they were all toasty and popping, I took them off and dumped them in a bowl. And then it hit. The brilliant, light bulb moment that was about to change the course of trail mix snacking. (You may think I've gone a bit crazy here, or that I'm exaggerating the excitement. You just wait.) As I was putting the nuts and seeds back in the cupboard, I pulled out the jar of vegan, dark chocolate chips. I had always intended to add some at the end, but when the mix was COOL. So what did I do?? I added the chocolate while the mix was still warm. Yes I did.

Not very much chocolate at all, but it transformed my little trail mix. Why? Because it melted and coated all those warm, crunchy nuts and seeds.

I don't blame you if you think this is the end of my trail mix story and you can stop reading, but hang with me, it gets better.

I took my bowl of warm, crunchy, chocolately goodness and I spread it out on some parchment paper on a cookie sheet. And then I put some rock salt on it, put it in the fridge and walked away. An hour later, I came back and prayed it was going to be as good as I was dreaming it to be. Let me just say, it did NOT disappoint. UNBELIEVABLE.

The real brilliance of it all is that because I have been baking through the evening, the smells have lulled the boys in to complacency and they didn't even stick their heads out of their rooms! Perfect.

My new concoction is safely stored in a glass jar and well hidden from the children. And I have found my new motivation for putting my runners back on.