Cherry & Almond Toasted Muesli

Last post was over a month ago, not a great start to the blog - sorry about that to anyone who might be reading!  It has been a busy 6 weeks or so, my parents visited from Australia, the Mr has been working in Christchurch for weeks and work has started the manic craziness leading up to Christmas.  So all in all not alot of time in the kitchen, oh and somewhere along the way I've lost my camera so we'll be photoless for awhile until I find it.

So while things have been pretty busy, I have committed to myself that I will eat a healthy breakfast every single day - no more muffins from the cafe at work for me!  Once  the warmer weather hits, my breakfast of choice is toasted muesli, fruit & yogurt.  Now I know that untoasted muesli is healthier but I'd rather have a little less of something that tastes really good!  I am a fussy girl, don't like peanuts and don't like raisins and it appears 99% of supermarket muesli includes one or both so the only solution really is to make my own!   It really is a doddle to do, yes it takes a bit of time in the oven but not much hands on time.  I usually throw all the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl on a saturday night then when I get up in the morning it's just a matter of stirring in the wet ingredients and popping in oven and doing something like the laundry in between stirring.

This recipe is based on my Nana's muesli with a few changes for a different flavour and using what I had to hand.

3 cups wholegrain rolled oats
1 cup oatbran
100g pumpkin seeds
1/4 cup sesame seeds
70g sunflower seeds
150g almonds (some I chopped roughly, some left whole)
1/2 cup honey
60g butter
1/4 cup oil
150g dried cherries

Combine all but the cherries in a large shallow dish.  Bake uncovered @ 160 degrees C for approx 1 hour stirring every 15 minutes until golden - it will continue browning for awhile after it comes out of the oven so take it out just before you think it's perfect.  Let cool in the pan then stir in the dried cherries and store in an airtight container.

Instead of Cherry & Almond what about....:

• Mango, Coconut & Macadamia - add 1/2 cup shredded coconut, replace cherries & almonds with dried mango & macadamias.
• Apple & Cinnamon - add cinnamon while still warm from the oven and diced dried apple
• Blueberry & Pecan....really any dried fruit & nut combo you can come up with will be delicious!