Easy-peasy breakfast muesli

I love playing at being the scientist in my kitchen. Being able to reproduce the same things you buy in the store and the end-product being cheaper and tastier than the store-bought version gives me an immense thrill.  But I'll be honest, many of the things I try out, I will try out once, just to be able to say it can be done and then will never do it again because it is just too much schlep to do it again and there are so many other things I still want to try out.

But every now and again I find something that sticks - something that is just soooo easy and so much cheaper and sooooooooo much tastier and healthier than the store-bought version that it becomes part of our family's daily habits. 

One such thing is my bread-machine muesli.

It was about a year and a half ago that I made my first batch of homemade muesli. The first time I made it in the oven, and true it tasted WAY better than the store-bought version but the time in the oven it required made it way more expensive than the store-bought version. So I thought that this would also end up as one of those once-off experiments.

That is until I read one day that muesli can be made in your bread machine using the jam setting! SAY WHAT???????

Of course I had to try this out and how happy I was that I had done so because the result was an easy, the-machine-does-everything, yummy muesli that even the hubby agrees is way better than the store-bought version.

Since that day I have tweaked my ingredients and from time-to-time I will add something different but the basic recipe stays the same.

I pop the ingredients into the machine just after dinner, whilst cleaning the kitchen and by the time we put the children to bed we'll have our next batch of yummy muesli for the next morning. One batch will last the family two to three mornings.

I normally add some dried cranberries or raisins to ours and the children prefer theirs with a few chocolate chips thrown in. These add-ons you can change as you like but any fruit or chocolate should only be added in after the bread machine has finished.  Another staple of our muesli recipe is a cup of nuts - I normally use walnuts but I've also added pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds and pecan nuts at different times.

Recipe

Easy-peasy bread-machine muesli

½ cup oil (I normally use Canola Oil as that is what I have in the house)

½ cup maple syrup or honey

3½ cups oats flakes (traditional not instant)

½ cup wheatgerm (optional)

2 tbsp flaxseed meal (optional)

1 cup nuts of your choice (optional)

1 tsp vanilla essence

1 cup dried fruit (eg. cranberries or raisins) or ½ cup of chocolate chips (optional and only to be added when taking the muesli out of the machine)

Important note:  Add the ingredients in the exact order as listed!

Add all the ingredients to the bread-machine and set to jam setting.

When the program is finished, remove muesli from machine and add fruit or chocolate if using.