22 Feb 2015

toasted muesli


A recent conversation at work got me thinking some more about something I already think about a lot: making our own food.

Do you like making your own? How much of your own food do you make? And on the flipside, what are we happy to buy that’s ready-made or processed? Where is the line?

Whether you work full time or not, have family or not, what time constraints stop you from making your own food — or not?

And the biggie — do we, should we care? Is this something you think about too?

A microwave meal has never darkened my doorway (and yes, you can detect the moral undertones in those words). Yes, sometimes I’m tired and grumpy after a day at work, but I would never think ‘oh, I’ll get something to heat up on my way home’. Eggs-on-toast is this lazy girl's fall-back; even lazier are the single portions of home-made soup in the freezer, squirrelled away for just such evenings.

It would not cross my mind to pop a cake in my shopping trolley, or get a savoury quiche or pie for dinner that night. Why, when whatever I can bake would be tastier and probably healthier? And I take great pleasure — and yes, pride — in making my own tomato pasta sauces.

But … I buy the tinned tomatoes for the sauce when it’s not tomato season. I collect and freeze panettones at Christmas time, anticipating rich bread and butter puddings in the winter months. I have a last-resort stash of muesli bars in my yoga bag, for the times a banana is not enough to fuel me thru two hours of downward dog. And (my guilty secret) I have a canister of savoy crackers, hidden in the pantry, for those times when only mindless salty crunching will satisfy.

I also recognise my technical limitations. Yeast and I are not friends, so I cannot bake my bread. And it would never cross my mind to make my own cheese or yoghurt; maybe I’m fudging definitions here, but I think of dairy products like cheese and butter as ‘ingredients’ for my own cooking and baking.

The comment that originally set me off was ‘oh, if only I had the time’. But I thought to myself: isn’t it about making the time? If it is something that you truly value, don’t you find the time to make a big pot of sauce, a week's supply of slow-cooked casserole, or a tray of berry muffins? If what you eat is truly important to you, doesn’t that make it a pleasure, not another chore on the to-do list?

I know many would say I’m lucky: I’m single, without a family to look after. But I work full-time, and have a house and garden to manage and maintain; I am not some Carrie Bradshaw wafting around with endless glamourous hours to spare.

Not long after the conversation that set all this off in my head, I pulled the weekly supermarket catalogs from my letterbox and surveyed just how many pages are devoted to products, many of which could be home-made: tinned soups, cartons of custard, iced cakes, morning-tea biscuits, roasted chooks or trays of marinaded meats, ready to pop in the oven. Potato salads, microwave rice meals, and of course, frozen pizza.

One could apparently eat without ever having a real ingredient — say, a carrot or an egg — enter the kitchen (that side of processed food also alarms me: the unnecessary amounts of fat and sugar and salt that cannot be nutritious and must surely be harmful in the long term. I want to be in control of what is in my food, and I want it to be real and healthy).

I don’t think making your own means you’re back in the dark ages, labouring away all day; but I think some people (like my workmate) must think that (which must account for the success of Jamie Oliver’s 30 and 15 minute cookbooks, overcoming our fears of hours in the kitchen). And as I’ve said, I don’t think making your own has to mean making absolutely everything; life’s too short and one has to be sensible; of course I recognise that. But surely life is also too important to rely on mass-processed food from a factory; to hand over all the work to unseen hands.

I’d be interested to know where your ‘line’ is, because I know I can get judgmental about things like this (don’t tell me you haven’t felt the same while checking out the contents of other shoppers’ supermarket trolleys).

What processed foods are you happy to let in your kitchen? What would you never let in?

Toasted muesli
Adapted from an Anneka Manning recipe. Toasted muesli is not something I have to make, but it's a easy crunchy treat, and you can control the sugar levels. Also, I love that there's no oil in this recipe, as I've seen in other recipes. I make this for a weekend treat, though it's also perfect sprinkled crumble-like over stewed fruit for a speedy pudding. Double the quantity if you wish; it magically lasts in an airtight container for weeks.
  • Preheat your oven to 160 and line at least two baking trays.
  • In a large mixing bowl, combine 3 cups rolled oats, 1/4 cup pumpkin seeds, 1/4 cup walnut pieces (I've also used macadamia pieces), 1/2 cup shredded coconut, and 1/4 cup flaked almonds (I've used those ones edged in skin).
  • Sprinkle over a good tspn cinnamon.
  • Then pour over 1/2 cup apple juice, and stir thru til evenly combined.
  • Spread the mix over your baking trays; you don't want it too thick, so you may want another tray. Dribble over 2-3 tbspns honey (between all trays); I like using a Tasmanian one with a stronger, less-sweet flavour.
  • How long you bake it for depends on how toasty you like your toasted muesli, and how thick your muesli layers are. I bake for 10 minutes, then stir around so the mix gets evenly cooked, flip the trays in the oven; bake for another 10 minutes, another stir and flip; and so on until I'm happy. I usually do 30 or 40 minutes of baking time. Watch carefully towards the end - it doesn't take long for the muesli to go from toasty to charcoally, trust me!
  • Allow to cool a little before serving with milk or yoghurt; and cool completely before storing in an airtight container. Mix through dried fruits of your choice (I like sultanas and those soft pillowy apple pieces).

20 comments:

  1. Good morning e. What a great post...I found myself agreeing the whole way through. Like you, I would never buy cake, sweet biscuits or heaven forbid: microwave meals. I do buy savoury biscuits (crackers), some bread, tinned tomatoes and cheese. I make yoghurt, bread, cakes, biscuits and most of our meals from scratch.

    It is about balance and doing what we can manage isn't it? I also think a lot of it comes down to organisation and a little bit of forward planning. It is hard to cook 'real food' or meals from scratch without having some plans in place and and well stocked fridge/freezer/pantry, especially when cooking for a family.

    Very interesting subject! I love homemade muesli, your recipe sounds delicious.

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    1. And i'm agreeing with everything you're saying! I imagine where you live, forward planning, organisation and ensuring the pantry i s properly stocked is hugely important.
      And i will always take my hat off to anyone who can bake their own bread. Wow, and yoghurt, too!

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  2. Yes, I agree with everything on your post. I have never owned (or used) a microwave and make almost all of our meals from fresh ingredients. I buy tinned tomatoes, tinned red kidney beans, baked beans and occasionally use tinned fish ( sardines & mackerel). Bake quite a bit, but not bread as we don't eat much bread. Buy cheese crackers and sweet biscuits if I need them. Mostly make my own cakes and puddings. I am very aware of the dangers of hidden salt and sugars in processed food so avoid those as much as possible. Make my own soups, rarely eat pizza, NEVER pork and ham products so no sausages and processed meats in this house! So, generally good and wholesome. I tend to buy a muesli base and add loads of seeds and nuts to make it mine and more interesting and tasty. Will give your recipes a try, looks good. Lots of fresh fruits and veggies although I always keep a tin of pineapple and sliced peaches in the cupboard.

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    1. Ah, baked beans! Gotta have a tin of those in the pantry, without a doubt. They are another of my lazy girl stand-bys, linda. I don't think anyone argues with tinned beand or legumes of any kind.

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    2. Oh, and meant to say, despite having lots of homegrown fruit frozen away, i always have a tin of pears in the cupboard too. It's a strange security blanket of mine, for when i'm feeling poorly.

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  3. Oh I wish I had more time! Can't bake .. No patience. But love preserving, making my own chili sauce and chutneys, bottling peaches. Every now and then something naughty sneaks into my trolley. .. But no way TV dinners!

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    1. If by naught you mean chocolate, frogpond, that does not count here :-) but see i figure i'm 30 years too young for preserving or jam making. I leave that to my mum and figure i'll get into that later!!

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  4. It is funny what we all decide to make or not make based on our knowledge, our time, or ideas of what is right. My day to day food is homemade for the most part. I even make things like mayo and mustard often (but not always). I made and canned about 60 jars of applesauce as the homemade stuff is so much better and my husband eats it almost every day. I have to make all my bread. I have a lot of food sensitivities and the gluten free ones all have potato starch. The solanums all make me very very sick. So I have to do that if I want to have bread. But we throw two huge parties a year (about 40 people for 10 hours) and we buy cake for it. We buy lots of stuff for it that I'd never let in the house on a normal basis. I never say never. Just rarely.

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    1. homemade applesauce - yummmmmm :-)
      particular sensitivities and allergies play a large part in it as well, as you say, daphne. i'm lucky I have none, but i'm sure I would want to take control of that rather than place it in the hands of a manufacturer, to be absolutely sure I was doing the best by my health.
      and your attitude of "never say never, just rarely" is probably a good cover for those indulgent times, or social times when we are considering others' enjoyment and not just our own preferences.

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  5. Great post Elizabeth... I must confess to buying some Lean Cuisine meals for a time when I was moving house... I was honestly so busy packing, I had no time to make things to eat. Other than that, I tend to make most things from scratch most of the time: yoghurt, bread, jams, even cheese. I buy tinned fish, fruit etc to have at hand. As Jane said, it's all about balance, but avoiding the aisles with pre packed processed food is a good things.

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    1. I cannot imagine you buying lean cuisine, lizzy - but moving house definitely falls under the category of "extremely trying and difficult times in life"; I think we ate a lot of banjo's bakery pies and sandwiches the week I moved into my house and my parents and I were busy stripping wallpaper and painting architraves.

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  6. I used to make toasted meusili but have been back onto soaked oatmeal now for a while. I love messing about in the kitchen and after getting a cheese making kit for Christmas have been exploring making cheese! What fun! I have a big birthday coming up and said to my hubby that I would much rather cook a lovely meal for friends than go out to some expensive restuarant where I leave feeling I could have cooked a better meal at less than half the price. Cooking something that I have nurtured from seed to plate gives me such immense pleasure!

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    1. AA, my dad says almost exactly the same thing: why go out, when he knows mum cooks a much better meal, or bakes much better cakes? i feel that way too. i went to a cafe once that served me burnt-but-soggy fritters recently -an admirable combination - and I thought, hmm, if I wanted burnt food I could have stayed at home and saved my money ... ;-)
      and yes, food harvested from our own gardens will absolutely always be so much more satisfying.

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  7. Really good post. Thank you for sharing your 'line' with us. I'm pretty much on the same page as you Elizabeth. I guess for me it's just eating real food (which sounds very cliche now I know) so growing food, eating mostly organic, cooking most food I eat at home and as less as possible from anything in a packet. If there is something from a packet, I like to know where it's from and aim for having 5 or less ingredients in it. However in saying that, I also enjoy eating out and travelling to eat! It all sounds good in theory but it can be difficult to limit food miles etc... If I was to describe what 'line' I aim for it would be ethical eating...

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    1. thanks for your thoughts! i guess my take would be 'mindful' eating too - even just being aware of when you are breakign or bending your own rules is a good thing, it helps strengthn one's resolve.
      and isn't is sad when 'real food' is a cliche when really, that's how it used to be and how it should be?

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  8. I completely agree with you. I cook every day from scratch but sometimes buy a packet of biscuits because I get fed up with the speed at which home made disappear. There are aisles in the supermarket that I've never even been down, though I do loiter near the ready made meals to get ideas for what to go home and make for supper. Interesting post.

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    1. oh anne, you make me giggle at getting ideas for dinner from the supermarket aisles. your home made versions would b much more delicious!

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  9. This has been on my mind more and more now as we've just had an imported frozen berries health scare here in Melbourne. Quite a number of people have hepatitis because of frozen berries from China. I'm going to be buying more Australian, locally produced food. I try to make as much of my food as possible sometimes as you said feeling tired and time constraints don't always make this possible. It's good that we've started the conversation.

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    1. thanks, catherine - and isn't it shockign that ittakes a major health scare for us to think about what we buy and eat? my mum and i were talkign about this incident on the weekend.
      i also think of all the berries and fruit and other amazing produce - and we have to import stuff from other countries!

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    2. sorry for typos, catherine, i hope you understood me :-) i meant to write in that last sentence, that i think of all the fruit and vegies we produce here, and we still import stuff. really out of whack, isn't it? reminds me of my garlic post last year.

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