Very Fruity Trail Plane Mix

Tomorrow I'm leaving for Australia! I'll be there for 6 months, studying and having a blast abroad. But before I get there I have a 22 hour trip ahead of me. That's a lot of travel time, and even more if you account for the time change (I'll have skipped an entire day), so I have lot's of opportunities to get hungry. So I made sure that I'm prepared for the long flight by packing snacks. I made this wonderful dried fruit mix with a bunch of my favorites. Dried mangos, apricots, cantaloupe, strawberries, bananas, dark chocolate raisins and yogurt raisins. I have enough to last me for a couple days so if the plane food is horrible, I'll be prepared. I love dried fruit. It's sweet and chewy, so it satisfies candy cravings, and even though its sugary it's better for you than candy. Another thing I love about dried fruit is that the taste and textures of the fruit are very different than the fresh fruit. It's fun to try different fruits dried, and see what they mix well with. I'm happy that I'll have this to take a couple of handfuls of when I'm peckish on my long journey.

Thoughts on Dried Fruit:

• I can't really eat fresh mango, I get numb mouth (aka I'm middy allergic) but I can stomach dried mango just fine. In fact I love the stringy texture of dried mango, its the perfect trail food. 
• Dried cantaloupe is unique in that it is super juicy dried! This makes it one of my favorite dried fruits, I always go for it if its available 
• Dried strawberries are candy. At least they taste like it! They are the perfect size and also perfectly poppable as a yummy snack. My mom tried them for the first time today and she couldn't get enough. She thought they tasted like strawberry licorice.
• Dried bananas are wonderful because you can use them as an alternate to crackers. They are crunchy, so I like to dip they I'm peanut butter or Nutella.

Love dried fruit, so it's the perfect snack for me on my long journey Down Under! I won't be blogging for awhile, but when I do get a chance to look for posts about eating and cooking in Australia.