As a Mom with a full time job a quick breakfast in the morning is a must, this has been refrigerator oatmeal for months and the kids (well me too) are tired of oatmeal. So cereal has become our best friend for right now, but finding cereal that has a low sugar content to keep my sugar sensitive hyperactive son on his best behavior throughout the day is very difficult and if you do find some that doesn't taste like you are eating cardboard the price may kill you anyway. If you have seen my son on a sugar high you would understand this is to preserve my sanity and keep his teachers from giving up on teaching. I have also made a real effort to reduce the number of preservatives in the food that we eat on a daily basis as I believe preservatives are not helping the hyperactivity. I stumbled on this link for a Healthy Cereal from a juicing website that has some great tips for a healthy lifestyle, my disclaimer so to speak is they do not know who I am or even that I was inspired by their recipe to make my own cereal. Yes, we do incorporate juicing and smoothies into our everyday diet especially when its 100+ degrees during the summer months; the flip side is I work closely with both my own and my kids doctors who believe in a healthy balanced diet as a lifestyle not something you do for a few months then go back to the fast food. I encourage everyone to talk to their doctor, if you don't feel comfortable talking to your doctor find a nutritionist to work prior to making any lifestyle or diet changes.
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| Just a little teaser to get you in the mood for breakfast. Trust me this is really amazing and will keep you from snacking all morning long, or is that just me that snacks all morning long. |
I was rummaging around my kitchen looking for ways to change up the recipe and to ensure my kids will not only eat the cereal, but love it. So I ran across some dried cranberries that were left over from making chocolate cranberry oatmeal. I measured out the 1 cup of nuts in my inspiration recipe and looked at it and thought this will not last very long at all and I need it last more than 1 day, so the recipe below was born. The serving size here is only a 1/2 cup. What how is that suppose to fill me up you say, trust me this is extremely filling and has no extra fillers that we have become accustomed to allowing us to fill the cereal bowl to the top. I came up with the serving size basically by going through a lot of this trying to gauge how much is a reasonable without being too much. For me this is a little closer to 1/4 cup, but ultimately I went with the 1/2 cup size that is also a single serving of oatmeal. When I first began making this and filled the bowl up then added milk it didn't take long before I thought what have I done there is no way I can finish this. Well I didn't finish it and the dogs got an extra treat in their bowls. I know they shouldn't eat people food so shhh don't tell anyone.
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| I use my fingers to spread the coconut oil, the bonus here is that coconut oil is a super moisturizer for dry skin. |
Since this is something that is very new to so many people, I am going to provide a lot of photos to ensure that you are successful your first time around. Plus when this is burnt it will stink terribly and I don't wish that on anyone.
Use a glass oven safe pan and rub coconut oil on the bottom to prevent the cereal from sticking during cooking. This doesn't need to be a lot at all. I put just enough on the pan to cover the bottom.
I do this first because I tend to forget and then have to scrub and scrape, which I hate!
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| Please note that I do not endorse any particular brands, this is just what is readily available in my area and therefore on hand in my pantry. The jar is honey from a local apiary, support your local farms and farmers when you can. |
Ingredients:
1/2 cup Coconut Oil
1/2 cup Honey (I encourage you to try local honey)
2 cups Walnuts
2 cups Oatmeal (old fashioned not quick oats)
2 cups coconut (I encourage you to go unsweetened if you can find it, I cannot find it so I use sweetened)
1 cup dried cranberries
2 tbsp cinnamon
I am sure if you are skilled using a single serve blender you can chop the nuts in one of those. I prefer not to use that method as the nuts get a little too pulverized for my likes, and I may be a control freak.
I also like to vary the size of the nuts between pieces size and larger almost half size. I like the variation and the texture that it gives the final cereal, but this is only my preference and can be changed to your preference. After the nuts are rough chopped I measure out 2 cups, this can be close enough if you chop a few too many nuts. After the nuts are chopped and measure out I dump them in the glass pan as that is where I everything up.
After I have the cranberries measured out, I just add them to the walnuts in the pan. I love the color of the cranberries against the walnuts, so had to share that here. As you can see my pan sits directly on the right side of my cutting board so this process goes very quickly.
Yes, I who thinks funnels are for sissies and just a way to get us to part with more of our hard earned dollars bought a funnel. Let me tell you that was the best 2 bucks I spent. Just remember I won't tell anyone if you choose to buy a sissy funnel too, just wear dark sunglasses and a hat when you buy it and no one will ever know.
So after getting the 2 cups of oatmeal measured out I just dump it into the glass pan with the walnuts and cranberries. As you can see I am pretty methodical about dumping the ingredients into the pan. I just love the mix of colors as the ingredients are layered into the pan.
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| If you only read this caption, you must resist the urge to stop here and eat it all. I had to take a picture for you before I started munching away! |
I literally then dump the coconut into the pan with the walnuts, cranberries, and oatmeal. This looks so amazing to me, I also am very tempted to just grab a handful and start munching away. Must resist the urge!
This is the fun part, carefully mix the Walnuts, Cranberries, Oatmeal and Coconut until it is all well mixed. I like to use a wooden spoon here, but I am sure metal or plastic will work just as well. At this point I also look for pieces of Cranberry or Coconut that have stuck together, if you have any just break them apart or consider it your bonus for working so hard.
This is the fun part, carefully mix the Walnuts, Cranberries, Oatmeal and Coconut until it is all well mixed. I like to use a wooden spoon here, but I am sure metal or plastic will work just as well. At this point I also look for pieces of Cranberry or Coconut that have stuck together, if you have any just break them apart or consider it your bonus for working so hard.
Once this is all mixed up get ready for the sticky part.I always use a 2 cup glass measuring cup as coconut oil is somewhat messy. Do the best that you can and scoop out 1/2 cup coconut oil and press it into the bottom of your measuring cup. Don't worry if it isn't perfect, you can see mine is far from perfect but is pretty close to 1/2 cup.Note: If you like crunchier cereal you can double the coconut oil and honey and cook 60 minutes. When you remove the cereal from the oven be sure to lay it out on paper towel lined cookie sheets to allow any excess oils to be absorbed by the paper towels before transferring it to the jars.
Next I just add 1/2 cup of honey right on top of the coconut oil in the glass measuring cup. This was I can microwave it right in the measuring cup and have one less bowl to clean up. 
After the coconut oil and honey are melted, they will stay separate in the measuring cup so don't worry about that. I give them a quick stir and then pour it over the cereal the best that I can. I then mix everything together until the walnuts, cranberries, oatmeal, and coconut are all covered in the melted coconut oil and honey mixture. Bake this for 30-45 minutes stirring every 10 minutes until the liquid is all evaporated.
After it's all mixed up I like to add the cinnamon on top by sprinkling it all across the mixture. You could completely do this before mixing, but I just prefer to add it afterward. You will want to make sure that as many of the pieces are covered in cinnamon much like the picture.
I set the timer for 10 minute intervals so I don't forget about stirring the cereal. To stir I basically push everything to one end of the pan and then pull back to the other end making sure the top is rotated to the bottom, then I spread it back out.
After the 20 minute mark, the smell is beginning to spread throughout the house and it takes a ton of willpower to not snack on a few pieces, trust me if you can hold out the cereal is completely worth it.
After 30 minutes, there was still quite a bit of liquid on the bottom of the pan, so I set the timer for another 5 minutes. After the 30 minute mark I always set the timer for 5 minute intervals because burnt nuts and coconut does not smell all that great. I also snagged a little bite for me..shh...I ate it without taking a picture so I will deny it, and it's just as amazing as can be. When all the liquid is crystallized and the cereal is golden brown, I remove it from the oven. I let the cereal cool enough to make sure when I transfer it to jars condensation doesn't collect. While the cereal is cooling I make certain to continue to stir every few minutes to keep from having a single huge chunk of cereal.Because I was also baking pound cake I was having a terrible time getting the cereal to cool so I transferred it to a cookie sheet for about 5 minutes and that did the trick. You know when the cereal is cool enough to jar up when it's no longer hot to the touch (warm is perfect to jar up, but hot will condensate and cause you trouble) and the cereal has gone from soft to crunchy.
You can see my canning jars are ready as I am getting ready to jar this up as I intend to save the cereal while we finish up some Raisin Almond that was not as successful the first go round. Even if you don't intend to store your cereal I encourage you to use jars, they are always easily washable, have no chemicals, and will not melt if they get put on the bottom rack of the dishwasher. You can also get the plastic screw on lids, I bought my plastic lids on amazon here and they are pretty inexpensive, but considered an add on item. How I got around that was grouping all my add on items together into a single order, which worked out great. I love to get a box of random stuff, especially when they are all my favorite items.
Definitely take a whirl at trying to get your jar to seal, as this will take some practice; I will admit I am terrible at canning and may not always do things that a true canner would do. I do encourage you to make sure that the jars and lids are appropriately sterilized, I use the high heat setting on my dishwasher which is almost always filled with jars. If your mother is like mine she has said you cannot reuse lids, but as long as there are no knicks or rust I will reuse them and know that it's a 50/50 chance of not sealing but I walk on the wild side and take the risk.
While the cereal is still warm in the jar, I place the lid and ring onto the jar. Much like canning the cooling process will seal the jar; the shelf life is really undetermined because what my kids don't eat within a few weeks my mother will sneak out of my house to put on top of her yogurt.Today one of the quart jars sealed almost immediately, the other didn't and I happened to be cooking in the crock and moved the unsealed jar over next to the crock to see if the heat would coax the jar into sealing. The crock did not put off enough heat to get the jar to seal; I am sure my mother would have tried to heat the jar and cereal and use a new lid and ring. This wasn't necessary as my sweet neighbor came over to see what was going on, I think she smelled all the goodness and wanted to snack, and I gave her the jar that didn't seal since she loved it so much and would eat it right away.
My favorite way to eat it is with milk in a small bowl on a saucer, but rarely that happens in my house!
My mother on the other hand prefers to eat the cereal on top of her favorite yogurt, which is laden with dyes and processed ingredients, but I will take every inch of success that I can with my family and be happy that they have given up almost all the commercial cereals!
For a printable recipe click here.
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