Xatal

Having food to snack on in your dorm is always a plus. Some people have massive stores of food — cup of noodles, ramen, cookies, crackers, chips, soda — and others just have a small supply. Even if you have the dining hall food to count on, having food around your room is convenient and (sometimes) more tasty.

Delicious.

Earlier in the school year, my roommate brought up a box of raisins to snack on. Later on, I brought up a bag of M&Ms from Christmas. The next weekend, my roommate brought some peanuts.

As we were snacking, we realized that it would make far more sense to just combine them and make some trail mix. And what a hit it was! Ever since then, we’ve been bringing up more M&Ms, peanuts, and raisins to keep it going.

The last time I went home, I decided it was time to make a much larger batch. I went to WinCo and went to the tubs of seeds/nuts, where you can buy in bulk by weight. I bought sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, raisins, peanuts, and M&Ms. When we combined them, the bag weighed easily about 4 pounds.

4 weeks later, we still have some left over, and we’re still snacking on it often. Next time, I’m thinking of adding some dried fruit like banana chips to it. I’m not a big fan of other nuts (like walnuts, almonds, pecans, etc), so I’m hesitant about that. I’ve also considered adding those peanut butter chips (like chocolate chips, but peanut butter instead), though that may be peanut overload. Chex would also be a big hit as well.

The key has been buying the ingredients separately — premade trail mix is surprisingly expensive, but making your own is surprisingly cheap, and you can control what’s in it completely.