5 Ingredient Fix: Pumpkin Seed Dried Cherry Trail Mix

You may be familiar with Food Network’s Claire Robinson and her show 5 Ingredient Fix on Food Network . She’s just come out with a new book called, what else, 5 Ingredient Fix: Easy, Elegant, and Irresistible Recipes . While it’s not a healthy cookbook per se, I’m intrigued by anything that makes cooking from scratch convenient and easy. After all, isn’t the reason that so many people are overweight is that they don’t know how to cook and rely on heavily processed convenience food or unhealthy fast food?

So ignore the recipes for Bacon and Egg Salad or German Potatoes. Instead choose the healthy recipes like the ones for Edamame Hummus, Ginger and Lemon Roasted Chicken with Braised Fennel, and Smoky Roasted Peaches. Or just enjoy the beautiful food photography from Stephen Morello.

5 Ingredient Fix would make a lovely present for anyone who loves to cook, but is too busy to fuss with an extensive ingredient list.

Looking through 5 Ingredient Fix, I found the perfect recipe to use up all those pumpkin seeds after we carve up our Halloween pumpkins.

It’s very easy to make roasted pumpkin seeds, also known as pepitas. Last year, I used Simply Recipes’ Toasted Pumpkin Seeds method of boiling the seeds in salt water and then roasting it. This worked out very well, but I used too much salt. Next time, I’m going to use half as much – about half of what Elise recommends.

Not only is this a healthy alternative to Halloween candy, but it’ll work as a Thanksgiving football game snack, too, especially when you have extra dried cherries or cranberries from other dishes you may be making.

Yield: about 6 cups

Ingredients:

• 2 cups roasted pumpkin seeds or pepitas
• 1 cup slivered almonds
• 3/4 cup raw sunflower seeds
• 6 tablespoons pure Grade B maple syrup
• Coarse salt, to taste
• 1 cup dried cherries or cranberries

Directions:

1. Preheat over to 300 degrees F.
2. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper, silicone baking mats or a TFX non stick kitchen sheet .
3. In a large bowl, toss the pumpkin seeds, almonds, and sunflower seeds with the syrup until evenly coated.
4. Spread the nuts and seeds out in an even, single layer on the lined baking sheets and season with salt.
5. Bake, stirring several times with a spatula or heavy duty, wooden scraping spoon , until just golden – about 20 minutes.
6. Remove from the oven. Cool the nuts and seeds completely on the baking sheet.
7. Add the cherries and toss to combine.
8. Store the trail mix in an airtight container at room temperature for up to two weeks.

Serving size is 1/2 cup. Sodium is from 1/2 teaspoon of salt.

• Calories 217
• Calories from Fat 144
• Total Fat 16.0g
• Saturated Fat 2.4g
• Trans Fat 0.0g
• Cholesterol 0mg
• Sodium 102mg
• Total Carbohydrates 14.1g
• Dietary Fiber 2.5g
• Sugars 6.9g
• Protein 7.9g
• Iron 22% of RDA

Nutrition Grade B from CalorieCount  

Weight Watchers POINTS = 6

• For a treat, stir in some chocolate chips or broken chocolate Halloween candy. Adding chocolate does defeat the healthy factor, so if you’re feeling guilty, just use a little bit of dark chocolate instead.
• If there are nut allergies in the family, omit the almond. You can use pine nuts instead, as they’re really a seed and not a nut.
• Instead of maple syrup, try agave nectar, which has a lower glycemic index. Dark agave nectar would be especially delicious.
• Substitute other dried fruit, like chopped up dates, prunes or raisins.
• If the POINTS, calories or fat is too overwhelming, sprinkle a little bit on your morning oatmeal or make a Greek yogurt parfait.

Pumpkin seed photo by Food Thinkers from Flickr .

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