Solving the cereal situation
As many of you may probably know, my husband is obsessed with breakfast cereal. He could eat it breakfast, noon, and night. And its dreadfully expensive here as well. The cheapest brands of breakfast cereal here are not cheap by any means and they're packed full of chemicals, food colorings, and sugar and not much of substance. Breakfast cereal is my husband's biggest vice, the one “luxury item” he feels is an absolute necessity, even when times are really rough financially.
I also am “an issue” when it comes to breakfast cereals. I love cereal, but I am insanely picky when it comes to breakfast cereals. I only like name brand- and not just any name brand, I only like General Mills or Kellogg's brand cereal, and only with skim milk. Change any of the variables and I think it tastes gross and don't want to touch it.
Slight problem, as they stopped marketing skim milk (or so it seems from all our local stores) in my region. Additionally, GM and Kellogg's cereals are very very expensive way out here in hick-town, Israel.
I decided that I would try to find a recipe to make my own breakfast cereal, one that would be cheap, nutritious, and tasty.
The homemade breakfast cereal recipess I saw written over and over and over again were granola. Homemade granola that calls for lots and lots of honey. Honey is quite expensive over here, so I was not about to make my own granola if it would cost me more than the store bought cereals.
I decided that in lieu of breakfast cereal, I would make granola bars for my husband and myself to eat for breakfast when I did not feel like cooking something hot like pancakes or oatmeal. I bought the necessary ingredients and then looked up the recipe, only to find out that I was missing about half of the necessary ingredients.
I played around with the recipe to make my own granola bars anyhow. Since I didn't have the rice crispies the recipe called for, but I had tons of rolled oats, I decided to make it completely from rolled oats. The recipe called for margarine or butter. I decided to use oil instead as a healthier alternative. I quadrupled the recipe, added lots more additives, and this is the recipe I ended up with:
12 cups rolled oats
1.5 cups brown sugar
5 cups white sugar (I think...)
¼ cup molasses (Very healthy. Chock full of calcium, iron, and lots of other vitamins and minerals)
4 eggs
¼ cup honey
2 cup oil
4 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp cinnamon
1 cup shredded coconut (I won't extoll the virtues here. But you can read all about coconut here http://www.coconutresearchcenter.org/ )
1 cup flax seeds (Very healthy. Contains omega 3 fatty acids, antioxidants, and has many many health benefits. Read more here http://www.healthcastle.com/flax.shtml )
1 cups whole grain sesame seeds (high in calcium, protein, antioxidants, etc...)
½ cup craisins (was supposed to be more but Moo ate up most of it before we got home)
I pressed this down into 4 oven trays and baked them till golden and made bars.
I made the bars a little too thick, and because the recipe was modified so much, these weren't nearly chewy as much as rock hard. As in, very hard to chew. You kinda had to gnaw at them to be able to eat them... Kinda reminded me of Wheatabix.
What a waste, I thought at first.
Then I got the bright idea and triple bagged a bunch of the bars. Took a hammer from my husband's tool chest and started banging it until I got lots of small little pieces.
Poured those little pieces into a bowl with milk and served it to my husband as breakfast. The milk helped soften it, and to my husband, this was just as good as any breakfast cereal. And loads cheaper and healthier too! (I get rolled oats for 6 shekel a kilo. I think I paid total 20 shekel or so for all this, and this is the equivalent of about 5 22 shekel boxes of cereal.)
Seeing how much my husband liked it, I decided to try this granola with the 3% milk we had at home. I loved it too! Even though its not name brand and not skim milk. ;)
I made my own homemade granola. With just a tiny little bit of honey, as opposed to the loads of honey most recipes call for. It came out delicious. This will be a new staple in our house. Filling, healthy (ok, all that sugar isn't ultra healthy, but there are no preservatives, chemicals, etc... just lots of added nutritional benefits), and cheap as well.
I put all the granola in our freezer.
Can't wait for breakfast tomorrow morning!
I also am “an issue” when it comes to breakfast cereals. I love cereal, but I am insanely picky when it comes to breakfast cereals. I only like name brand- and not just any name brand, I only like General Mills or Kellogg's brand cereal, and only with skim milk. Change any of the variables and I think it tastes gross and don't want to touch it.
Slight problem, as they stopped marketing skim milk (or so it seems from all our local stores) in my region. Additionally, GM and Kellogg's cereals are very very expensive way out here in hick-town, Israel.
I decided that I would try to find a recipe to make my own breakfast cereal, one that would be cheap, nutritious, and tasty.
The homemade breakfast cereal recipess I saw written over and over and over again were granola. Homemade granola that calls for lots and lots of honey. Honey is quite expensive over here, so I was not about to make my own granola if it would cost me more than the store bought cereals.
I decided that in lieu of breakfast cereal, I would make granola bars for my husband and myself to eat for breakfast when I did not feel like cooking something hot like pancakes or oatmeal. I bought the necessary ingredients and then looked up the recipe, only to find out that I was missing about half of the necessary ingredients.
I played around with the recipe to make my own granola bars anyhow. Since I didn't have the rice crispies the recipe called for, but I had tons of rolled oats, I decided to make it completely from rolled oats. The recipe called for margarine or butter. I decided to use oil instead as a healthier alternative. I quadrupled the recipe, added lots more additives, and this is the recipe I ended up with:
12 cups rolled oats
1.5 cups brown sugar
5 cups white sugar (I think...)
¼ cup molasses (Very healthy. Chock full of calcium, iron, and lots of other vitamins and minerals)
4 eggs
¼ cup honey
2 cup oil
4 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp cinnamon
1 cup shredded coconut (I won't extoll the virtues here. But you can read all about coconut here http://www.coconutresearchcenter.org/ )
1 cup flax seeds (Very healthy. Contains omega 3 fatty acids, antioxidants, and has many many health benefits. Read more here http://www.healthcastle.com/flax.shtml )
1 cups whole grain sesame seeds (high in calcium, protein, antioxidants, etc...)
½ cup craisins (was supposed to be more but Moo ate up most of it before we got home)
I pressed this down into 4 oven trays and baked them till golden and made bars.
I made the bars a little too thick, and because the recipe was modified so much, these weren't nearly chewy as much as rock hard. As in, very hard to chew. You kinda had to gnaw at them to be able to eat them... Kinda reminded me of Wheatabix.
What a waste, I thought at first.
Then I got the bright idea and triple bagged a bunch of the bars. Took a hammer from my husband's tool chest and started banging it until I got lots of small little pieces.
Poured those little pieces into a bowl with milk and served it to my husband as breakfast. The milk helped soften it, and to my husband, this was just as good as any breakfast cereal. And loads cheaper and healthier too! (I get rolled oats for 6 shekel a kilo. I think I paid total 20 shekel or so for all this, and this is the equivalent of about 5 22 shekel boxes of cereal.)
Seeing how much my husband liked it, I decided to try this granola with the 3% milk we had at home. I loved it too! Even though its not name brand and not skim milk. ;)
I made my own homemade granola. With just a tiny little bit of honey, as opposed to the loads of honey most recipes call for. It came out delicious. This will be a new staple in our house. Filling, healthy (ok, all that sugar isn't ultra healthy, but there are no preservatives, chemicals, etc... just lots of added nutritional benefits), and cheap as well.
I put all the granola in our freezer.
Can't wait for breakfast tomorrow morning!