Why Pay for Muesli

I'm a sucker for grains, any kind - fresh baked bread, whole wheat pasta, sprouted wheat bagels, oatmeal cookies... and one of the foods I particularly love is muesli. I never miss breakfast, and nothing starts the day better than a nice mix of rolled oats, wheat germ and some dried fruits, drenched in thirst quenching whole milk. A bowl of muesli can't be beat for good taste and filling you up.

But there are a few things that bug me about buying pre-made muesli: it always seems overpriced, it never has exactly what I want, and it's usually too sweet.

Overpriced - $5-$6 per pound (approximately) seems like too much to pay for the amount that I go through. I know it has dried fruit in it, which is expensive, but it's mostly just rolled oats, which aren't expensive.

What do I want? - Not sunflower seeds. Blech. There aren't too many foods I dislike, but that is one of them. Ideally, I'd like a muesli with lots of fruit and a mixture of grains and seeds to make it more interesting and nutritionally diverse than just rolled oats and raisins.

Given these complaints, I decided I should just make my own. After all, it's just mixed up dried ingredients. What could go wrong? Well, for once, nothing actually. It had exactly what I wanted, and I mixed it up in about 2 minutes. As a bonus, my son liked it too, expanding his repertoire of wheetabix, yogurt and berries to include one more item.

I didn't include a picture here because it looks exactly as it sounds - like a bowl of rolled oats, dried fruit and a few other extras. My photography isn't good enough to make that look any better than a pile of stuff. But it did taste pretty good, so you might want to give it a try.

What was in the cupboard Muesli

• 1 c. rolled oats
• 1/2 c. rolled rye flakes
• 1/4 c. wheat germ
• 2 Tbs. wheat bran
• 1 Tbs. brown sugar
• 1/4 c. raisins, roughly chopped (if I don't chop them, my son picks them out and eats nothing else)
  
• 10 dried apricots, sliced thin, then chopped (see raisins)
• 1/4 c. pecans, roughly chopped
• 2 Tbs. unsweetened coconut flakes
• 1 Tbs. flax seeds