Bircher Muesli

Happy Friday everyone!

I am so glad it's Friday. Today me and my roommates are having a cute little Christmas celebration. We are aware we are a month early, but in our defence I leave for home in two weeks and Marnie leaves for home a week after me. So we won't be celebrating Christmas together. So today we are having a cute little dinner, going to see Argo and exchanging presents (yay for presents).

But before we do that, the girls have to study for exams which start next week. So to any uni students out there either suffering from mid-term stress of end-of-year stress, I hope it all goes well over the next few weeks and you get a good holiday!

I haven't been doing much, except for writing. NaNoWriMo started yesterday (for me) and so two days in and I have written approximately 5,000 words. I may write some more later today. 10% of the goal word limit reached. I'm really enjoying myself and I find that writing and thinking about my story keeps me busy and I don't eat or snack as much, which was becoming a problem.

Tomorrow I'm heading to the beautiful Sunshine Coast to see my grandparents and relax for five days. Then I'll be back next Wednesday for my last week in this apartment this year!

Now, onto the food. I wasn't going to share this for ages, but it is now a staple in my diet. I love it so.

What I love about this breakfast is how easy it is. After dinner the night before you can simply throw the ingredients in a bowl, pop it in the fridge and then in the morning if you’re in a rush or can’t be bothered, you have breakfast waiting for you. The only negative thing about this is that is requires planning in advance. But if you’re anything like me, who lives for food, I often think about how much time I have in the morning and what I can eat the night before, so this is one easy breakfast that works for me.

The flavours for this change depending on what you put it in – I love the mango Chobani and mango combo, but I’ve also tried peach Chobani and apple, and strawberry Chobani and strawberry. You obviously don’t have to have Chobani but it is my favourite yoghurt at the moment – low in fat and sugar and damn tasty – it’s the first Greek yoghurt I’ve been in love with. I would definitely recommend using natural or Greek yoghurt for this – you need a thick yoghurt for the muesli to be thick. I prefer to use flaked nuts as well simply because whole nuts sometimes annoy me in soft foods – the flaked almonds work very well with this.

There are tons of these recipes out there, so I looked at several and then worked up my own. One of my favourite bircher mueslis is by Antonia at Health Inspirations, so if you’re looking for a different take, try hers! It’s a regular in my breakfast at the moment!

Level of Difficulty: The easiest and quickest breakfast

Average Cost: Very cheap

Main Ingredients: yoghurt, oats, nuts and apple

Occasion: Breakfast, or dinner.

Menu Options: This is, as usual, a very simple recipe to which you can add anything you like. I personally would follow the basic instructions provided here and then go crazy with the flavour of yoghurt you use and the toppings. Now I love fruit that matches the yoghurt as topping, or using the leftover half apple, or adding more nuts and fresh berries. You could be creative though – chocolate chips, coconut, brown sugar, honey, more yoghurt, a splash of milk – anything you want you can add to this. The flavours are yours to play with.

Serves 1

What you need:

½ cup oats

½ cup flaked almonds

¼ - ½ grated apple

¼ cup almond milk (or other milk you chose)

170 g Greek yoghurt (I use Chobani mango)

1 cup water – or enough water to just gently cover the mixture

Toppings: leftover apple, nuts, coconut, mango, berries, honey, more yoghurt, etc

What to do:

In a bowl, combine all of the above ingredients bar the water and toppings. Mix together well.

Pour the water into your bowl slowly – you want the water to just barely cover the top of the muesli mixture so the oats can soak up the water overnight. If you are only planning on leaving the mixture in the fridge for a little bit, do not cover with water, just put a little in.

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour but ultimately overnight.

In the morning, or when you chose to eat, drain any excess water from the muesli (there shouldn’t be any water left if you only put a little in). Serve cold topped with whatever you chose – for the pictures here I used mango yoghurt so I topped the muesli with mango, coconut and flaked almonds. Other days I top the yoghurt with the remainder of the apple I grated the night before (if you put a little lemon juice on the apple and cover tightly with plastic wrap and place in the fridge overnight, it will not go off), nuts and mixed berries.