Muesli

I don't have a lot of time for lunch on Sundays and Mondays, so I need something quick and easy, but still healthy and delicious. Muesli is the perfect solution.

Muesli is like granola. The difference is that granola usually contains oil and is baked. You can find both in stores, but making your own is sooooooooooo easy and much healthier. Plus, I think home-assembled tastes better.

I say "home-assembled" because that's literally all you have to do - assemble the ingredients you have on hand. It's so much fun to make because you can get creative and customize it the way you like it. The basic components of muesli are grains, nuts, seeds, and dried fruit. I also like to add fresh fruit to mine sometimes. 

Be careful when choosing your grains. Contrary to popular belief, grains are not a necessary part of a healthy diet and they can, in fact, have adverse effects if you eat too many of them or ones that are highly processed. Also, if it isn't organic, it's likely loaded with pesticides. Yuck. Apart from rolled oats in my muesli twice a week, the only other grain I eat regularly is organic air-popped popcorn. 

Popcorn - that's a whole other blog post for another day. Let's get back to the muesli. Here are the ingredients in mine:

-a small swirl of real maple syrup (A swirl is an official unit of measurement, isn't it?)

-1 cup whole fat, grass fed, plain Bulgarian yogurt 

-1/4 cup dried mulberries

-1/4 cup pecan pieces (I buy them already broken into pieces.)

-2  tbsp. rolled oats 

-1 tbsp. hemp seeds

-1 tbsp. raw cacao nibs

-depending on the season, fresh fruit (currently pomegranate arils)

 

(All ingredients are organic.) 

 

I never buy anything labeled low fat or fat free because it's probably highly processed and contains unnatural and unhealthy ingredients. In addition to that, some vitamins are fat soluble, so healthy fats are a necessary part of a healthy diet. I try to include a little healthy fat in every meal and snack.  

 

As for raw cacao nibs, if you eat them right out of the bag, they're a little bitter. I personally like the taste of them right out of the bag. They're like nuts with a hit of chocolate flavor to them. In this recipe, the bitterness is balanced out with all of the other ingredients. So if you don't like them right out of the bag, try them in a dish. I also like them in salads. They're very healthy. What a bonus!

Okay, now let's put this all together.

 

First, I mix the yogurt with the maple syrup. (Please use real maple syrup. Pancake syrup is not the same!) Then I layer layer the ingredients as listed above. You can mix it all in when you make it or you can wait until you're ready to eat it to mix it all in. I prefer to leave mine layered until I'm ready to eat it. A 2-cup Pyrex glass dish is perfect for this make-ahead meal. It takes me about 10 minutes from start to finish (including cleanup) and I have made it up to two days in advance before. It's a most awesome feeling when I'm ready to eat my lunch on Sundays and Mondays and I can just pull it out of the fridge and dig in!

How can you customize muesli for yourself using the basic components of grains, nuts, seeds, and dried fruit?