Oaty Crunch Cereal

I don't know about you, but I love my porridge, especially on these cold, damp, windy, dark winter mornings....so it also goes that I like oats. And usually cereals, but not the cardboardy kind that taste as bad as the box they are in likely tastes.

A few days ago, I had a memory of eating something crunchy, sweet and oaty for breakfast - that wasn't muesli. It was a roasted oat cereal that was really nice for a change from the usual fare and ever so ever simple to make.

I set about working on a recipe to call my own and having a few taste testing mornings (and evenings!) with everyone. The following recipe is the one we all loved - it wasn't overly sweet, or too oaty or not filling enough - it was just right.

To make this cereal:

3 cups oats

1 cup chopped pecans

6 tablespoons goat's melted butter 

6 tablespoons maple syrup

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

pinch salt

Preheat your oven to about 150C and prepare a large baking tray by covering it with a sheet of parchment paper. 

Mix all of your ingredients together in a deep bowl taking care to make sure all the oats are well coated with the butter and maple syrup. It should not be overly wet.

Then spread out the mixture evenly over the baking sheet and place in the hot oven for about 25 to 30 minutes. After 15 minutes or so, give it a little stir to ensure browning throughout. Then leave in the oven until it takes on a golden colour. 

I turned off the oven after 30 minutes and left the cereal to cool on the tray. Once cool I broke it up into clumps and stored in an air tight jar until we were ready to use it. This is lovely with goat's milk, a few fresh berries or chopped apple and of course on it's own.

It will keep for a couple of weeks like this - but it doesn't last long as it tastes so good!

April

Oaty Crunch Cereal

An Imperfect Cookie - Bliss

Right now I am eating (another) an Oatmeal Raisin Cookie - it is so tasty, I am even overlooking the fact that it's a little crumbly. How are cookies supposed to be anyway - I mean what are we comparing them to? 

Perhaps our 'ideal' for nearly any foods these days is to compare it to something perfectly round, flat, held together and uniform in every other way from a factory machine. Of course along with that perfect cookie comes the extra ingredients that are put in to get the desired effect.

Nothing like that with homemade foods - this cookie I am munching on right now is not uniform in any way - each one looks different. They are slightly crumbly from the use of only oat flour and oats and I probably put in way too many raisins. 

I like them that way.

Of course, you can't compare a homemade anything with a factory made something else - because the energy of the food is so very different. Whenever someone asks me what my secret ingredient is for my lovely cakes and cookies - I always say it is butter and love. 

So, with that in mind here is my recipe for these Oatmeal Raisin Cookies (as it stands right now).

3/4 cup butter

1 duck egg

2 cups oat flour

1 1/2 cups oats

3/4 cup raisins

1/3 cup honey or Maple Syrup

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cinnamon or all spice

1/2 tsp baking powder

salt (pinch)

2/3 cup nuts (optional)

Place all dry ingredients into a deep bowl and sift together to mix well. In the meantime melt the butter over low heat in a small sauce pan, put the honey in with it and mix. Beat the egg into submission in a separate bowl.

Once the flour is mixed, add the butter and egg - keep mixing until well coated. Then add in raisins and nuts if desired. This mixture should be thick and not runny - because each flour absorbs liquid differently, adjust quantities if needed. 

Spoon out large spoonfuls of the dough onto a greased cookie sheet or parchment paper and bake at 175C for about 12-14 minutes or so. Don't leave too long as they will be too dry and don't take out too soon as they will be doughy in the middle. 

These are fabulous with a cup of dandelion coffee! And you will have made them yourself...bypassing the food processing, perfect cookie route to enjoy imperfection at it's finest!

April 

Oatmeal Raisin Cookie 

Making Homemade Muesli - A great breakfast!

I just finished a great bowl of muesli after fasting since Sunday evening - and a couple of good workouts. It tasted heavenly! I love our muesli for a few reasons, mostly because I make it myself, but also because it is so easy to make! 

The kids love it, and I always feel like they have something substantial in their stomachs when they are heading off for sailing or rock climbing - activities that require some fuel in the system. A bowl of homemade muesli eats like a meal, filling, hearty and balanced.

I have included my recipe below, which will be included in my new recipe book Eat Like A Pagan - however there are a couple of things to point out - I use a very large mixing bowl and just start adding ingredients. Basically whatever I have on hand that might taste good in muesli, goes in. I also do not measure anything, a handful of this, a cup of that - just pour it in to your desired amount.

That way no two mueslis are alike, I use different nuts, seeds and dried fruit each time, but some such as coconut, raisins, sunflower seeds and oats form the backbone of this cereal.

Muesli

Sultanas

Shredded Coconut

Seeds (Pumpkin, Sesame, Sunflower)

Slivered Almonds, chopped walnuts, hazelnuts or cashews 

Oat flakes or Millet flakes (or both)

Chopped dates, apricots, figs or raisins

Dried blueberries or Cherries

Ground linseeds, ground almonds 

Maple Syrup and Olive Oil

1 teaspoon Cinnamon 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg (less if making less)

Mix all dry ingredients together in the quantities desired (use a little or a lot) then pour over 2-3 tablespoons (or more to taste) of Maple Syrup and about 2-3 tsp of Olive Oil. Adjust the quantities of spices to match the quantity of muesli - use more or less as desired. 

When thoroughly mixed, scoop out enough to cover a flat baking sheet or other dish that can be easily placed under a grill. Grill or toast the muesli until you can smell it (should smell sweet) and it turns a golden brown.  Careful to not leave it too long - it will burn.

Take it out and stir to turn the cereal over and put back in for another few minutes. Once done enough, take out and enjoy with Almond milk or goat's milk as a great wholesome breakfast or as a snack for extra energy.

If you make too much you can store Muesli in an airtight glass jar for a few days to weeks (we have eaten after a month and still great!) as you eat it. This is great for traveling as well, my hubby takes it to work for a snack...

Muesli in jars 

There is nothing as good as a lovely breakfast to get your day started! Have a healthy day,

April

making Muesli 

Creating Regular Customers

I have been wanting to address this issue - because it is something that we as a family have noticed quite strongly since we stopped eating processed foods - and I am fairly certain this must be related because they would go hand in hand with each other.

What I am talking about is the phenomena of overeating, or you know how what happens when you buy a bag of salted nuts - you would find yourself eating the entire bag. Or crisps, chocolate bars, sugary treats, you name it - we might be able to lump these all together. 

For us as a family the only snacky food left in our diets which needed to be removed and replaced with a homemade version was the salted nuts. We have long since given up sugar, chocolate and potato crisps. 

When a bag (or a few) of salted nuts would come into the house, it was as if something else took over our brains. We could not help ourselves and could never get enough of these nuts. They tasted great, and were highly addictive!

Once they were left to the wayside with all of the other processed factory made foods, I started to make my own. And the response is entirely different. The roasted salted nuts I make are delicious, very tasty and we love them.

I can honestly say I like them far better then the shop bought nuts because they taste like 'nuts'. However, the one thing we all have noticed is how we are not 'craving' them, we are not desperate to shovel another handful into our mouths...yet they don't last long and everyone enjoys them.

So what is the difference here? Could these processed foods be linking into some addiction centre inside of our brains or bodies (gut?) and placing us on the losing end of a food battle?

This will take some investigation, but at this point I certainly think a couple of things here - one is that there must be other ingredients in the package which are not listed (5% rule) and secondly we are being controlled by other factors. Especially when it comes to our tastes, cravings and diets.

The 5% rule means something along the lines of when a product contains less then 5% of an ingredient at it's final stage, it may not have to be listed on the ingredients. This might mean anything such as MSG...but who really knows anymore!

As for the other factors controlling our tastes and cravings - well this is widely known to be all the non-beneficial organisms living in our guts such as molds, yeasts and nasty bacteria. If there are enough of them in the wrong areas, we can have some gut mutiny taking place. 

Lots to think about here when it comes to processed foods. I mean they are designed to be delicious and consumed in an addictive way - it's called creating 'regular customers'. 

Take matters into your own hands and make something homemade today - something you've never tried before - treat yourself, you are worth it!

April

Path to the top at Lough Hyne West Cork