I changed my tune because I recently happened to have all the fixings for some muesli so I thought I’d whip some up before I left for work one day. I very loosely followed a recipe from Bon Appétit, but there is barely a need for a recipe.

This was my resulting bowl of health!

Kind of a humble thing.

You know why I think this stuff rocks and is perfect for a weekday breakfast? You don’t have to watch it! It’s not like normal oatmeal or eggs where you have to hover over the stove. Just throw some things in a bowl and then come back in a few minutes after a shower or something and breakfast is ready!

Fruit and Honey Muesli

Yield: Serves 2.

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:

1 1/4 Cup rolled oats
3/4 Cup milk
3/4 Cup lowfat yogurt
1 Teaspoon vanilla
3/4 Cup orange juice
1/3 Cup honey (or adjust for your sweetness desires)
1 apple, peeled, cored, chopped
1/2 cup dried fruit (cranberries, blueberries, raisins, etc.)
Pinch of salt
Sunflower seeds or some other nut (optional topping)

Directions:

1) Toss your oats, yogurt, milk, and vanilla in a bowl and stir it up really well.

2) Let this sit for at least 5 minutes

3) In a separate bowl, mix together your orange juice and honey. Add your apples and dried fruit.

4) Let that sit for about 5 minutes to let the apples absorb some flavor.

5) Toss everything together, let it sit for 5 minutes, then enjoy!

Preparing the Oats

To make a good muesli, you’ll need these things. You could leave out the vanilla if you were in a crunch, but it adds a wonderful flavor to the bowl.

Oats are cheap! Vanilla... not so much.

Basically, just toss your oats, yogurt, milk, and vanilla in a bowl! Stir it up really well. It will look pretty liquidy, but your oats will absorb a good amount of liquid.

Not pictured: My skeptical glances.

Let this sit for at least 5 minutes, but you could let it sit longer if you’re doing something else. This was mine after about 5 minutes. All the milk was basically absorbed and the oats were pretty soft.

Just after 5 minutes!

Meanwhile, in a separate bowl, mix together your orange juice and honey to make sure the honey is completely dissolved. Then add your apples and dried fruit. You could sub out any fruit that you want honestly.

Kind of like sangria!

Let that sit for about 5 minutes to let the apples absorb some flavor and then toss everything together!

Kind of a mess.

The longer this sits the softer the oats will get and the less moisture there will be. I let mine sit for another 5 minutes or so before digging in!

The sunflower seeds add some good texture to the dish. Totally optional though.

Coffee is the drink of choice.

Quick, simple, and healthy. And also delicious! Ok. Maybe not cheesy omelet delicious, but a different kind of delicious. The kind that leaves you feeling ready to tackle the day ahead.

Try this next time instead of your normal oatmeal. I think you’ll be happily suprised.

Ok. Sorry. Back to reality. I’ve been itching to make granola bars for a few weeks now and finally did it last weekend. Turns out that once you have the basics down for homemade granola, it’s pretty easy to make granola bars. Shocking I know.

I was in a peanut butter mood so I used that as a base flavor for the whole thing.

Better than store bought. No doubt.

So there are two basic parts to this recipe: First, make granola. Second, make granola bars. Luckily both steps are really easy and this recipe makes about 12-14 granola bars which are great to have on hand throughout the week.

Peanut Butter Granola Bars

Yield: 8x8 baking dish.

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour + cooling time

Ingredients:

3 Cups rolled oats (can't use the instant stuff)
1 Cups various seeds and nuts (I used 2/3 Cups sunflower seeds, almonds, and cashews for this version)
1/2 Cup dried fruit (cranberries, cherries, etc)
1/2 Tablespoon cocoa powder (optional)
1/2 Teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 Cup Honey
1/4 Cup Peanut Butter
Pinch of salt

Granola Bars:
The above granola recipe
3/4 Cup honey
1/2 Cup peanut butter
1/2 Cup Brown sugar
1/4 Cup neutral oil (grapeseed or corn works well)

Directions:

1) Roughly chop nuts and seeds and add them to oats. Add cinnamon and cocoa powder and a pinch of salt.

2) After the oats, nuts, seeds and seasonings are combined, stir together the honey and peanut butter in a separate bowl.

3) Pour that mixture into granola and stir really well to combine. Make sure everything is really evenly distributed. Spread out the mixture onto a rimmed baking sheet.

4) Cook at 350 for about 30 minutes and stir them every 5 minutes.

5) After the granola has turned a nice brown color it is done! Pull it out and let it cool.

6) Add dried fruit.

7) For bars, mix all the ingredients except the granola in a medium saucepan and put it over medium heat. Stir it just until it starts to bubble and all of the ingredients are melted.

8) Pour it straight over the granola! Mix this up well again.

9) Pack it into a square baking dish. Push down on it with a spatula to even it out and compress the oats

10) Stick this in the fridge for at least 2 hours and then you can slice it up!

11) If the granola is really hard, you can let it sit at room temperature for 15-30 minutes and it will soften up a bit.

Adapted from How to Cook Everything.

The benefits of a full pantry.

What’s kind of nice about keeping a well-stocked pantry is it very frequently pays what I like to call pantry dividends. This recipe is a case in point. For me, all I had to do for this recipe was buy dried cranberries. I had every other ingredient needed.

Making the granola

Granola is really simple to make and you are completely missing out if your buying the store bought stuff. It’s just so awesome to be able to customize it to whatever tastes you want.

To make it, roughly chop your nuts and seeds if necessary and add them to your oats.

Nuts and oats.

Next add your cinnamon and cocoa powder if your using them and a pinch of salt.

Please note the below photo where I made the mistake of adding my dried fruit. You aren’t supposed to add that until after you bake the granola. That’s what I get for trying to make granola, take photos, and yell at the Washington Redskins all at the same time.

A mild mistake.

After your oats, nuts, seeds and seasonings are combined, stir together your honey and peanut butter in a separate bowl.

Resist eating it like a soup.

I could just eat this with a spoon.

Then pour that mixture into your granola and stir really well to combine. Make sure everything is really evenly distributed.

Then spread out the mixture on two rimmed baking sheets.

Looks like oatmeal, smells like peanut butter.

Cooking the granola

Cook these sheets at 350 for about 30 minutes and stir them every 5 minutes. If you don’t stir them every few minutes, the peanut butter will burn and that would be very sad.

After your granola has turned a nice brown color it is done! Pull it out and let it cool. NOW you can add your dried fruit. If you are like me and you happen to mess that up, it’s okay. Just be sure to stir everything well while it’s cooking. You run the extra danger of the dried fruit burning.

Mine turned out fine though even with my mess up.

Keep an eye on this stuff.

Making Bars

The only thing you need to make bars now is a light syrup that will hold all of that delicious granola together. You can also take this as an opportunity to add even more peanut butter flavor to the party.

Mix all the ingredients except the granola in a medium saucepan and put it over medium heat. Stir it just until it starts to bubble and all of the ingredients are melted.

Then pour it straight over your granola!

The Gooey stuff.

Mix this up well again. It will be more gooey than the first batch. Pack it into a square baking dish. Push down on it with a spatula to even it out and compress the oats. Just light pressure will do. No need to show off the guns or anything.

Press it into a pan.

Stick this in your fridge for at least 2 hours and then you can slice it up!

If the granola is really hard, you can let it sit at room temperature for 15-30 minutes and it will soften up a bit.

Very tasty.

You can keep these in the fridge for a week or two without a problem. When I first take one of these bars out of the fridge, it’s rock hard. But after about 10 minutes it is softer but still crunchy. Just like I like them!

And the peanut butter flavor is great. It’s amazing how just a little bit of peanut butter can really flavor a lot of food.

You may note that I only used half of the granola for the bars. You can save the other half in a sealed plastic bag to either make more bars or just eat like cereal.

This is the kind of thing that I really believe is so easy to integrate into your weekly or monthly schedule and I think you’ll be absolutely shocked at how much crunchier, tastier, and healthier they are than 99% of the ones you buy in the store. Give it a shot sometime!

Turns out I was right:

You have to make this if you are a granola fan.

After doing some research and looking at MANY different recipes, I realized that granola is kind of like one of those “Make-a-bear” workshops. I’ve never actually been in one of those shops but I think I get the general idea. You go in and pick out your teddy bear, your outfit, and your characteristics with the goal of giving the drab old teddy bear some personality. You get to make it “yours”. Genius marketing if you ask me.

Granola is very similar. There are dozens of variations and probably hundreds of additions that you can use to give it some personal flare. You can go on the cheap with some basic rolled oats, honey, and cinnamon, or you can get extremely luxurious.

I chose somewhere in the middle, but still started with plain old rolled oats.

Rollin' with the oats.

I used Mark Bittman’s recipe from this book because I trust him. I made a few alterations, but kept the proportions the same.

Homemade Granola
- 6 cups rolled oats
- 2 cups various nuts/seeds. I used 1/2 cup of each of the following: Sunflower seeds, flax seeds, chopped cashews, sliced almonds.
- 1 Teaspoon Cinnamon
- 1 Teaspoon Ghirardelli’s cocao powder (my addition)
- 1 cup honey. I probably did closer to 1 1/8 cups. Adjust according to your tastes.
- 1 cup golden raisins
- 1 cup dried cranberries

These are a great addition to anything.

Add all of your nuts and seeds to your rolled oats and mix it up really well. Some other options you could use include walnuts, pecans, peanuts, hazelnuts, Macadamias, pine nuts, pumpkin seeds, pistachios, and on and on and on.

Don’t add more than two or two and a half cups of this stuff though or they will overpower the granola.

This bowl just got way healthy.

Then put in whatever spices you would like along with your sticky stuff. I chose cinnamon, coca powder, and honey. Again though, there are tons of options: anise, vanilla, allspice, nutmeg, poppy seed, maple syrup, or molasses just to name a few possibilities.

Again though, don’t over do it. I would choose two or maybe three spice additions and a base. If you add to many then it starts to taste like nothing at all. Choose wisely, young backpacker.

Honey makes oats into granola.

Now for really the only hard part of this recipe: stirring. This stuff will be pretty thick and you want to make sure that all of your honey and spice is evenly distributed. Stir it for a few minutes to make sure it is well-combined. Don’t worry, dude, you can’t over-stir granola.

Then pour out your mixture onto a baking sheet and spread it out to form one even layer. If you use the above recipe you will either need two baking sheets or to do it in batches. It’s a lot.

Miles and miles of granola.

You want to cook this at 350 for somewhere between 25-30 minutes. My first tray I cooked for 30 minutes and it was borderline burnt. My second tray I cooked for 27 minutes and it was spot on perfect. I think this varies depending on oven and ingredients you use.

I would start watching it pretty closely after 25 minutes. The last thing you want to do is burn a whole batch of this stuff!

Once it is done pull it out but leave it on your baking sheets to cool. Then sprinkle on all of your dried fruit or half of it if you are working it batches. It is semi-important to add the fruit while the granola is still hot so the flavors start to blend.

Then let it cool completely and store it in an airtight container. The stuff will last for a very long time which is good because it makes a bunch.

This recipe makes like 40 of these.

One reason why I like this recipe oh so much is because granola is expensive. In DC, one 13 ounce box of granola in the store costs $4.19. This entire recipe costs me $18 and made the equivalent 3.5 boxes of granola. While the cost appears to be more for the homemade version, I have nuts, seeds, and dried fruit left over to make a second batch if I wanted to. All I would need is the oats which run about $1.30/lb.

I had a bowl of this for breakfast this morning and I must say that it was very delicious. Maybe there’s something to this granola craze after all.

If you know any hippies or wilderness wanderers you might want to use the below links to share this with them.