This recipe is one I have adapted from my mother's method over the years. Below I share my current recipe, but you can also adapt it to suit your family. When my children were small, I made it with the chopped rolled oats, used 1 dsp brown sugar in the liquid mix, and I added handfuls of chocolate or yoghurt covered raisins from the bulk bins  after toasting, which convinced them it was at least as good as Hubbard's cereals and they loved to eat it. :-) To me, that small extravagance back then was worth it, as it set the up for a lifetime of healthy breakfast choices. Now everyone is big, I use whole-grain rolled oats and forego the special raisins and brown sugar. I decided this time around to work out just what this currently costs to make too - so you can compare it to store-bought cereals. More on that below.

Method:
Preheat oven to 100C. In a small pot on the stove, place 3/4 cup oil (I use olive), 1 dsp honey, and 1 dsp sugar or substitute (I currently use a stevia/erythritol blend). Heat gently just enough to combine.

Meanwhile, in a large roasting dish place:
1 kg rolled oats
Handfuls of nuts and seeds of your choice. I use:
3 handfuls each sliced almonds and whole cashews or cashew pieces
3 handfuls each pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds
1 cup linseed (ground in coffee grinder)
1-1 1/2 cups seseme seed (ground in coffee grinder).

Stir to combine

Drizzle oil mixture over the top, then stir thoroughly to coat everything. Bake for 1 1/2 - 2 hours, stirring every 20 mins or so. It's quite forgiving - if you go off and leave it for a hour or so, it won't hurt anything. Alternatively, you can increase the temp to 125C and do it for a shorter period, but keep a close eye on it if you do that, as over-cooked oats and nuts are not very nice! Once toasted to your satisfaction, turn the oven off, and leave the muesli in there until cold or overnight.

Finally, add some dried fruit of your choice - I generally add raisins, or sometimes home grown and dried berries if I have them. Store in an air tight container. This mixture easily fills my 4.2 litre cereal container.

Healthy and filling, this muesli is a great way to start the day!

Cost:
It is always a useful exercise to add up the cost of commonly-made recipes from time to time, to make sure you're not going to extra effort to produce something more expensive than the supermarket's ones! Of course, by doing it yourself, you can ensure only the best ingredients and no nasty fillers, so take that into consideration! Let's look at what a batch of this muesli costs me to make. Since I have a Price Book it is easy for me to find the per kg price; all I needed to do was measure how much I use in each batch of each ingredient.

I have yet to go to the store and read lots of muesli packets to find which ones compare best. The closest I can see online is the bulk bin natural unsweetened or toasted muesli from New World (which appear to have far less nuts and seeds in them) at $13.90/kg. Most of the packeted varieties I have checked out recently contain a lot of wheat and other grain fillers which don't suit us. Of course, I could cut back on the amount of nuts and seeds, but the result would probably be far less satisfying or nutritious.

I will confess, this has been an interesting exercise; I hadn't realised just how much the cost added up these days! If I were buying ingredients from the supermarket bulk bins, it would cost even more.

How about you? Do you make your own breakfast cereals? Do you know how much it costs you?

A lovely, easy & healthy dinner - you can use whatever vegetables you have on hand or in the garden.

Ingredients:
150g chicken breast per person (can do it with less)
Onions, garlic
Various vegetables - about 3 cups per person
Mushrooms (optional)
Fresh or dried herbs
Organic soy sauce
Salt
Cornflour for thickening

Zucchini if you wish to serve this on zoodles (zucchini noodles). Other alternatives are rice, spaghetti squash, or pasta, or just have the stir-fry on it's own.

Preparation:
You will need 2-4 cups chicken stock for this - so if it's in the freezer, pop some into a small pot and defrost on low while you prepare the vegetables. I make a simple chicken stock by boiling chicken carcases (the bones left over from a roast) in water for 2 hours. I try to always have plenty in the freezer to use in various dishes.

Cube and put aside 150g chicken breast per person.

Peel and chop 2 onions
Crush and dice several cloves of garlic
Put both aside in a small bowl

Chop, dice, whatever, a selection of vegetables - about 3 cups per person. This time I used carrot, celery, broccoli, peas, and sweetcorn kernels. I get them all ready and combine everything in a large bowl.

If you'd like to use some mushrooms, prepare those and put them in a separate bowl, along with some chopped fresh herbs - I used parsley and oregano.

To prepare zoodles, wash zucchini and cut off ends. Use a spiralizer or peeler to create spirals or long ribbons.

Method:
In a large frying pan or pot (I use a large electric frying pan), heat some olive oil. This time, I used garlic oil and skipped the chopped garlic in the mixture (it was delicious!). Saute onions and garlic along with chicken until chicken is sealed on all sides and partly cooked.

Add vegetables, stir fry for a couple of minutes. Add a generous amount of soy sauce, to taste. Add chicken stock - enough to cook veges in without burning and to make a nice sauce afterwards. Turn veges with a large spoon until well coated in stock and soy sauce. Sprinkle with salt if desired. Add mushrooms and herbs, cover and simmer for a few minutes until vegetables tender.

Thicken with cornflour mixed to a runny paste with water. Serve.

To cook zoodles: Heat olive oil in a separate pan, and cook zucchini noodles for just long enough to give a pasta-like feel, not long enough for them to go all soggy. About 2-3 minutes.

I served the chicken stir fry on zoodles, and accompanied it with fresh sweetcorn, dropped into boiling salted water and cooked about 10 mins. Delicious!