Lets talk Muesli or Granola!
Buying organic ones can get pretty pricey and honestly I still have to find one that everybody in this house likes. Plus our kitchen and dining area is too small to have 4 big packs standing around. So I came up with the idea to do a basic Muesli with ingredients that we all like. And in the mornings everybody can mix their own little extras into their bowl and all are happy. Most mornings it is just a little cocoa powder, a few cranberries or maybe some small chunks of dark chocolate.
This is what I came up with, what works best for us.
Basic Muesli/Granola
4 cups porridge/oats flakes (the old fashioned ones, not the super fast microwavable ones)
8 cups of mixed flakes (mine have wheat, rye, spelt, millet, buckwheat, barley)
1/2 cup linseed
1 cup sunflower seeds
1/2 cup chia
1/2 cup sesame seeds
2 cups millet flakes
1 cup popped Quinoa
1 cup popped millet
1 cup oat-pops (look a little like Smacks but are not sweet)
2 cups cashew nuts
2 cups ground hazelnuts
1 cup almonds (whole or shredded)
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamon
1/2 teaspoon ground clove
a fair bit of fresh ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon ground ginger
and 350-400 ml of our yummy homemade canned applesauce (it acts as a sweetener (here no one has the urge to add more sugar to it) and it also makes the crunchy bits, once it was baked in the oven)
Mix all well in the largest bowl you can find. I first mix all the dry parts with my hands, and add the applesauce in the end and mix it with a pair of salad spoons.
Spread thinly 2-3 salad spoons per baking tray. Do this for 3-4 trays, depending how many you can fit in your oven. Preheat oven to 150C/300F. Put in the first 3 or 4 sheets. Set timer for 10 minutes, then stir well and spread out thinly again. Bake for further 10 minutes. Feel the crunchy bits carefully. If they still feel the slightest bit moist bake a little longer. Otherwise fill hot into a canning glas or other air tight container (I would not use anything plastic!) I use the Ikea ones. They have been doing a great job for the past few years, and they are not very costly. Once you have enough trays baked that your Glascontainer is full, close while still hot! This way it will seal with vacuum.
The longest I have tested shelve life was 6 months and it was fine after that. Will it last longer? I guess yes, but I never got the chance to test it. I have been making this Muesli for about 3 years now. We now have 4 regular eaters and the amount won't last 2 months. So shelve life here is not really an issue anymore...
A little side note and out of my own experience... you know those rubber seals with the little pull-thingy on them to break the vacuum seal easier before opening the glas for the first time?
Make sure that is somewhere on the side and not caught under the back bracket! It is incredibly hard to get a proper grip of it to pull!
I very much like the taste of buckwheat, if you haven't tried it, do! Millet contains a lot of iron, Calcium and Vitamin B, but can taste a little bitter, so you might want to play around with the amount of flakes if you are not to gone on the taste!
You can now vary this basic Granola every morning to your taste, try adding dried fruit like apricots, dates also dried cherries and strawberries. Or if in season fresh fruit, or simply a banana and some cocoa... chocolate chunks... the possibilities are endless and help not getting fed up with it, even after 3 years....you can eat it the classic way with warm/cold milk, or try in yoghurt either natural or with flavour
No comments:
Post a Comment