Ohhhh, do I have a treat for y’all with today’s post!
So, I decided this was the year that I would actually get creative in the kitchen and whip up some homemade Christmas gifts to surprise my friends and family with. I thought long and hard, browsed through numerous blogs and buzzfeed articles in search of some inspiration before finally landing on granola…which was my original idea, might I add.
Granola. I could do that, right? Not that hard. Mix all the ingredients together and toss them in the oven to lightly toast. Easy enough. Foolproof. “So easy a caveman could do it”.
Well. That plan failed in all of 18 minutes.
Note to self: Maybe next time (that is, if you ever attempt to make granola again) you should just like, do a test run with a small portion of the whole batch, and not the whole batch all at once. Just a thought.
So, as you can probably guess, I burnt it all. I mean it was fully singed. Burnt to a crisp. Almost black. Awesome, Clara. Way to go!!! In my defense, I’m back at home at my parent’s house, and I don’t think we’ve ever baked anything in the oven that hasn’t come out at least somewhat burnt. It’s cursed, I swear! We can decrease both the cooking time and the temperature (both of which I did with the granola), and still have the finished product look like it was in for 10 minutes too long.
After burning the first batch, sulking a little bit, and making a trip to the gym to burn off some steam, I decided that maybe making some that didn’t need to be baked was the better option. Since I still had a good amount of granola-making ingredients left over, my mind went to muesli.
For those who don’t know what muesli is, don’t feel like an idiot. If you would’ve asked me 4 months ago, I couldn’t have told you either, and I’m in the nutrition field…Yikes. Anyway. Muesli is essentially the exact same thing as granola, but without the addition of any oils and sugars, and is eaten raw and uncooked. So like, raw granola, maybe?
I’ve only had muesli maybe 3 times in my life, but didn’t think it could be that hard to make. It’s just what, oats with some nuts and seeds? Maybe add in some dried fruit for extra additional texture and color? I did a quick Pinterest search for muesli recipes and was sold in 0.44 seconds. SO much easier and less complicated than granola!! After perusing through some more recipes to get a feel for flavor and ingredient combinations, I eventually came up with this Gingerbread Muesli mix, which is essentially exactly what I had for the granola, minus the wet ingredients.
If you’re like me, you might be thinking “Sounds spectacular, Clara, but how do I eat muesli?”. Super simple! You can enjoy it heated up like regular oatmeal, have it cold with milk like cereal, use as a topping for a yummy yogurt bowl, or even soak it overnight in milk for a mix between oatmeal and cereal. The options are endless! Due to the addition of nuts and seeds and the subtle sweetness from the dried fruit, I think I might actually start to prefer muesli over granola!
[yumprint-recipe id=’19’]
I’m excited to gift something that I made on my own, and hope that my family and friends enjoy it as much as I did. What homemade Christmas gifts have you made in the past?
