Last week, Jaeger asked me to explore buying a variety of cereal grains so we could try to diversify our morning breakfast a little bit. When I went shopping at Vitamin cottage yesterday I picked up a smattering of new cereals.
Today I decided to try the Guistos Brand Nine Grain Cereal. It includes cracked wheat, barley, corn, millet, oats, rye, triticale, brown rice, soy and flax seeds. I was dubious when I calculated that with my normal add-ins for oatmeal (fruit, soy milk and sugar) this mixture would have about 100 more calories than my normal oatmeal (though significantly more iron and protein). However, by excluding one of my normal fruits, chopping the sugar by 1/3 and not including soy milk, I got it fairly close to my oatmeal. Thus, my breakfast consisted of a ½ cup of nine grain cereal with 50 grams of frozen peaches (its too hard to try to measure frozen peaches by the cup), ½ cup sweetened frozen raspberries (I cant find unsweetened at a reasonable price) and 2 packed teaspoons of brown sugar.
For oatmeal (old fashioned, not instant), I can usually stick it into the microwave for 5 minutes and come out with a decent consistency. (Those who know Jaeger will probably not be surprised to learn he considers the microwave method of cooking grains to be sacrilege.) Thus, when I saw that the directions stated the nine grain cereal needed to be cooked for 10 minutes, I was hoping that my normal 5 minute microwave time would be sufficient. Unfortunately, it wasnt. I ended up microwaving it about 9 minutes before it reached the right consistency.
The cereal tasted . . . okay. I still prefer the oatmeal because the soy milk adds more creaminess. However, I might be willing to include it in my weekly rotation. Tomorrow, Im contemplating trying Quinoa.