A Kitchen and An Apprentice

Muesli is a cold Swiss cereal that primarily consists of rolled oats.  Traditionally, it’s set to soak in water overnight (hello overnight oats) and is eaten with fresh fruit, nuts, and cream sweetened with honey.

This takes a bit more preparation than a typical cold cereal, but nothing more than prepping some of the oatmeal recipes I’ve shared.  This particular recipe doesn’t require soaking overnight, although I’m going to delve into the muesli depths because it’s fun to have breakfast recipes that are a twist on the same old oatmeal.

Yield: 1 serving

Blackberry & Apple Muesli

This is a traditional Swiss Muesli recipe with rolled oats, grated apple, blackberries, honey, and cream.

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Ingredients

• 4 heaping TBSP rolled oats
• 4 oz. fresh (or frozen) blackberries
• 4 oz. grated apple
• 1 TSP honey
• dash of cinnamon

Instructions

First, soak the oatmeal in 6 TBSP cold water for 10 minutes. While you're waiting, mash the blackberries with a fork and combine with the grated apple. Sweeten this mixture with honey and combine. Add the fruit to the soaked oats and top with cream and cinnamon.

Notes

Inspired by: Darina Allen

I’ve noticed some seasonal patterns in our food and drink consumption.  We drink a lot of sparkling water in the warm weather months.  Sparkling water gets traded for tea when the weather turns cold.  Oatmeal becomes increasingly popular December thru March.  It’s interesting to see these patterns emerge in different seasons.

While delicious, cereal is something we don’t really buy.  We try to stay away from manufactured and processed foods.  And yet, breakfast cereals are an easy and convenient thing to have on hand and rely on when other hot breakfast options take too long to prepare.  I’m kicking off this series on healthy, from scratch breakfast cereals – spanning hot and cold options – to provide some inexpensive and easy options for breakfast on the go.  We’ve eliminated gluten from our diet for the foreseeable future.  Oats provide a great gluten free option that’s both easy and has carbohydrate content which are both difficult to come by in the gluten free world.

Here are some of the reasons I love oatmeal:

• It’s a convenience food that’s healthy
• It’s very inexpensive, especially if you just buy oats
• There are limitless ways to customize and change up the flavors
• There are options for texture – ranging from rolled outs to steel cut oats
• You can take it anywhere.  If you’re traveling and don’t have easy access to refrigeration, I’ll share versions that literally all you need is either hot or cold water.
• Boiling water and cooking the oats in a saucepan is unnecessary.  If you have any sort of a thermal cup or container, this can be your vessel for making effortless oatmeal.

Need to take it with you and don’t have access to refrigeration?  Here are some trade-outs you can make that will turn it into a stable shelf meal on the go:

• Trade out your fresh dairy for powdered dairy.
  • Most grocery stores just have non-fat, fortified powdered milk, however Azure carries high-quality full-fat powdered milk if you’re on the lookout for something like this.
• Swap your fresh fruit for dehydrated or freeze-dried fruit.
  • I like to dehydrate bananas – they’re easy and they taste incredibly different than store bought banana chips that are typically fried and have added sugar.
  • Freeze-dried berries are easy to find, especially in small quantities in grocery stores.  These are delicious and last a lot longer than even dehydrated fruit.
  • Other options are raisins, craisins, dehydrated pineapple, etc.
• We typically add maple syrup to our oatmeal to avoid refined sugar.  If you want a non-refined sugar option that’s dry, swap out your maple syrup for maple or coconut sugar.

Yield: 1 serving

Morning Glory Oatmeal

Think a healthy muffin with warming spices like cinnamon, fresh out of the oven, turned into a bowl of warm comforting oatmeal. This is a wonderful way to change up your oatmeal routine with something you'll look forward to!

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Ingredients

• 1/2 cup rolled oats (or steel cut oats)
• 2 pinches of sea salt
• 2 dashes of cinnamon
• pinch of ground ginger
• 1 TBSP raisins
• 1 TBSP dried pineapple
• 2 TBSP dairy of choice (dried or fresh)
• 1 TSP maple syrup (or maple sugar)
• 2 TBSP shredded carrot
• 2 TBSP toasted pecans, chopped
• 3/4 cup boiling water

Instructions

In a thermal cup or container, combine all dry ingredients. If you're using fresh dairy, fresh fruit, or liquid sugar (maple syrup, honey, etc.) hold these and add at the end. To the dry ingredients, add 3/4 cup to 1 cup hot water. If I'm using rolled oats, I use 3/4 cup water. If steel cut oats, 1 cup water. Stir to combine and place an insulating lid on the cup/container. Let sit for 15-20 minutes (30-60 for steel cut oats). Add any wet ingredients at the end. Enjoy!