Homemade Cold Cereal with Chef Maki

Cold cereal can be expensive and not nutritious, so here are a couple of alternatives. Both very yummy and pretty simple to make. Pardon the picture quality. I really should stop taking pictures with my phone, but it is so convenient! :)

Graham Crunch

1/2 Cups Whole Wheat Flour
2/3 Cups Almond Meal (Buy like this or just grind up almonds until powdery.)
3/4 Cups Dark or Medium Brown Sugar
2 Cups of Milk
1 tsp Baking Soda
1/4 tsp Salt
4 Crushed Graham Crackers (1 graham cracker = 1 rectangle that can split into 4 parts)



Mix all the ingredients thoroughly together with egg beater. Spread thinly on 2 large, buttered cookie sheets. Bake for 20 minutes at 350 degrees.



While baking the second cookie sheet, scoop the cereal from the first cookie sheet and put it in blender or food processor (1/2 at a time) and do a few quick pulses of the blades. (You should have large crumbs.) Put the cereal back on the cookie sheet. Take the other cookie sheet out of the oven and do the same. (Yes, it is still hot.)




Now put both cookie sheets back in the oven and turn the oven off. (They can slightly overlap if needed.) In the morning, put the now crunchy cereal into an airtight container.

Enjoy with sliced fresh strawberries and milk if desired. Also makes a good topping for a fruit & yogurt parfait with homemade crockpot yogurt.





Muesli/Granola Stuff

I call it granola if it has been oven toasted, Muesli if it is eaten without baking. The beauty of this recipe is that you can just throw in whatever you have on hand and it tastes good. I make huge batches, so whereas I may throw in a whole cannister of regular oats, you may just want a couple of cups. Use some or all of these ingredients.

These four are the foundation, so I highly recommend using these:

Oats
Whole Wheat Flour (about a 1 part flour to 6-8 parts oats)
Oil (approximately equal parts oil & honey)
Honey


Here's the optionals:

Shredded coconut
Nuts of any kind--walnuts, almonds, pecans, peanuts, etc.
Seeds of any kind--sunflower, sesame, etc.
Dried fruit of any kind--raisins, craisins, dates, apples, apricots, etc.
Spices--cinnamon, pumkin pie spice, cloves, ginger, nutmeg, etc.
Wheat germ


Mix together everything except the oil and honey. Then, pour the oil and honey over the top and remix. Taste test it. Add more spices and honey if needed. If you are doing muesli, you are now ready to eat it. If you want granola, put it on a cookie sheet and bake at 300 for about an hour, stirring it around every 20 minutes. If making granola, I suggest not adding the fruit until after you have baked it because the fruit tends to get hard and crunchy otherwise.


See some of my other breakfast tips here and here.

Did you do your Fit for 5 today?

Baking soda tips here.

More recipes at Tammy's Recipes blog carnival.