The bulk food department at Whole Foods
We’d seen “Mueslix” before, but never tried “Muesli” until we went to Ireland for a friend’s wedding. Muesli is German for “dry rolled oats, nuts, and berries.” Actually, to be fair, while Camri was discovering Muesli, I was discovering eggs, thick bacon, and black pudding. While I was purposely not asking what the difference between white and black pudding was, Camri was mixing Muesli with yogurt and enjoying every bite.
When we got back home, we found authentic European style Muesli, but were always a little dismayed at the price. “dry rolled oats, nuts and berries” are subject to some sort of obscure import tax. A few months go by, and we’re in Mexico. Again, Muesli and yogurt are Camri’s breakfast of choice, while I have Machaca and Huevos Rancheros. Just like the Ireland trip, we came back home to re-discover that Muesli is pretty expensive here.
Then it dawns on us, “this is really just rolled oats, nuts and berries, we can make this for cheap.” So we did. We went to the Whole Foods bulk food department, picked out a bunch of oats, nuts, and berries, and mixed it together. We ended up with this recipe. Enjoy.
Camri’s Muesli
The proportions are really to taste, we tried to measure them officially, but decided it was better to make the recipe as a guide. The best part of buying from the bulk food department is you don’t have to buy anything you don’t want. If you don’t like flax seed, don’t put it in there. If you do like flax seed, put a bunch in there. It will always be Muesli as long as you call it that. Again, Muesli is German for “oats and stuff.”
Mix this up in a big Ziploc bag
Rolled Oats
Quick Oats
Raisins
Hazel Nuts
Almonds
Flax Seed
Add some vanilla yogurt right before you eat it, and enjoy. For a kind of weird change up, mix the yogurt and Muesli together the night before. The oats suck a lot of the moisture out of the yogurt, giving you a Greek style yogurt. It’s really good. If you want to make it more “dessert” like, add some honey.
The Whole Foods bulk food section really scared us for a while. It seemed hard to navigate, like we’d buy something that didn’t taste good, or we wouldn’t want. We were also sort of unsure whether or not it was actually worth buying rice in bulk, are you really saving money? We did a really brief price comparison, and it turns out you save about 10% buying bulk. “Bulk” is sort of the wrong way to think of it. The best part about buying bulk is you don’t have to buy in a specific size. If you’re making pesto sauce, why buy a full bag of pine nuts? Just buy what you need from the bulk aisle. Whole Foods also has a free booklet describing all their bulk items and how to cook them. It’s a nice guide. One more note, Whole Foods actually has Muesli in their bulk department. If you want to cheat, go ahead and buy it.
For more background on the origin of Muesli, check out the Wikipedia Article.
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